Marketer’s Mind Memo – Issue #42

In the next few weeks the Brown clan is relocating.

After 15 years in the same home we've decided it's time for a little change. 

We're staying in South Florida, though. In fact, only moving about 3 miles away from where we are now.

But we're pretty pumped for our new place... which is already under contract and waiting for us to close on. Which should be the end of June.

In the meantime, I've been sifting and sorting through about a dozen potential home insurance policies.

Unfortunately, my agent sent them over with little explanation. 

He kinda said, "Here you go. Tell me which one you want for the new place."

Meanwhile, these policies are not only filled with about 70 coverage items and prices and discounts spanning four columns and thirty rows... they're packed with horrifying jargon like: Dry Rot & Bacteria Coverage, Windstorm Loss Mitigation, Building Code Grading. 

What in God's name?!

Needless to say, outside the thousands in Estimated Premium staring at me at the top of each policy, I have no clue what the heck all this other stuff is.

So I asked my agent, Michael, to explain it to me. 

He sent me back an email with a few lines of additional detail.

Not good. Michael's additional detail was also filled with jargon. 

So I told him I needed a meeting with him before I could make a decision.

Now look...

If Michael wasn't already my insurance agent, I likely would have just moved on to someone else, another agent.

And there's the first lesson I want you to understand -- a confused prospect doesn't buy.

If your prospect doesn't understand what you're saying... what your product does... how it does it... and what it's going to do for them... they will not buy from you. Period.

The mistake Michael made was thinking my understanding and knowledge of insurance was up to par with his. 

Why he thought that, I have no idea.

But, Michael fell prey to the Curse of Knowledge. He spoke to me about these policies the same way he would likely speak to another insurance agent. 

And right there is the second lesson for you -- you need to speak to your prospect with their language... on their level... based on their depth of understanding, not based on yours.

Remember, it's not a matter of what you know and understand; it's a matter of what your prospect knows and understands.

And it's not a matter of what you can comprehend; it's a matter of what your prospect can comprehend.

This is why it's so important your marketing campaigns be simple, easy to understand, on your prospect's level, and using their language. 

At the start of my follow-up meeting with Michael, I said to him, "Explain these policies to me as if I was in the second grade. Seriously, as if I know nothing about home insurance."

He obliged... 

And I was then able to understand the differences between the policies. 

So... I was able to chose one. Which I did. 

Remember, your prospects have to understand what you're saying if they're ever going to buy from you. 

With that, let's get to this week's goodies...

MY FAVS THIS WEEK

• Motivation Is A Myth: How To Be Disciplined By Design
  
  Lots of entrepreneurs procrastinate. And they blame a lack of motivation. They believe their lack of productivity is because of their lack of inspiration and motivation.
  
  But, it's the other way around -- their lack of motivation is because of their of production.  As this article explains, action comes before emotion. To be motivated you must, first, choose to be disciplined. 
  
  
• How To (Actually) Calculate Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
  
  I don't agree with everything shared in this article.
  
  However, I found it interesting the way the author distinguishes between Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) and Cost Per Acquisition (CPA).
  
  This is a deep read. But, worth it. 
  
  
• Build A Scaling Customer Acquisition Strategy
  
  This is a solid article from my buddy Ryan Deiss of Scalable and Digital Marketer. 
  
  For years I've talked about the value of using CPA:AOV ratio for scaling customer acquisition. We call it the Golden Ratio when it's 1:1 -- a dollar of sales returned for every dollar invested into traffic. 
  
  Here, Ryan shares a more aggressive ratio you can use if you want to scale even quicker. (It's not for everyone. But it's the ratio the biggest direct response marketers use.)

ODDITY FROM MY LIBRARY

Written by former Chairman and CEO of Ogilvy & Mather, Kenneth Roman, and former Executive Creative Director of Ogilvy & Mather, Joel Raphaelson...

Writing That Works is a quick read which shares some immediately actionable tips for making your communications more impactful.

You can tell right away these guys have a background in advertising, because so many of their suggestions apply to copywriting as much as they do general communication. 

The 18 tips shared in chapter two, Don't Mumble -- and Other Principles of Effective Writing, is, alone, worth the small price for this book.

Note: There's a smidge of content which is a bit dated (i.e. writing memos). But, the bulk of writing recommendations in the book apply to every medium we use today.  

WHAT I'M TELLIN' MY TEAM

This week on our internal Team Marketing Training...

I explained how a marketing message needs to evolve as prospects move from being new in a marketplace... to sophisticated consumer. 

While the offer may remain the same, the marketing idea and lead for the campaign needs to adapt to who the audience is, what they're already aware of, and what outcome they desire. 

As an example...

A person brand new to the world of online marketing likely isn't dealing with the same issues and problems as is a person who's been marketing online for years.

Therefore, if we were marketing to both of those audiences...

What we say to get attention, create engagement, and generate interest is going to differ for each group. 

Again, we may be leading both groups to the same offer...

But, what we do and say at the beginning of the campaign will need to be adapted to what the prospect knows, understands, and is experiencing right now. 

TEAM TAKEAWAYS IN THREE BULLETS:

• If you’re going to present an ordinary solution the marketplace is already familiar with, you have to find a fresh and unique angle to talk about it. You have to turn the ordinary into something extraordinary. 
  
  
• Beware of the Curse of Knowledge. Our level of understanding is not the same as our prospects. Prospects are almost always far lower in their knowledge of our product/topic. Therefore, our marketing message needs to be far lower.  It should speak the prospect's language, not ours. As their language and understanding and awareness grows, so can our messaging. 
  
  
• Markets evolve over time. They transition from being filled with generalist experts to specialist experts. Over time, prospects favor specialists. Which is why specialists command and get paid more money than generalists. 

MY ADVICE

A question posted inside the E5 Nation Facebook Group...

Below is my response:

I'll tell you where I believe everyone can start...

With a Joint Venture/Strategic Alliance Director -- someone who's job is to set-up partnership deals with other entrepreneurs for the purpose of having them promote your offer.

I recommend this for three reasons:

(1) Joint venture partnerships can be one of the fastest ways to grow a customer base.

When a partner recommends or endorses your offer to their customer list, conversions are often significantly higher than seen with cold traffic. 

(2) There's no capital risk when you're paying commissions to partners based on results (i.e. sales, leads, etc.). 

(3) If you're willing to pay a Joint Venture/Strategic Alliance Director a substantial percentage of sales which their partnerships bring-in, you can have someone in this role on pure incentivized compensation.

So, their role adds zero capital risk.

I would consider paying the Joint Venture/Strategic Alliance Director 25% of all sales their partnerships bring-in. And I'd consider paying the partners up to 75% of all sales they send you. 

Both of those percentages are attractive and well above average in most markets. 

This would give you motivated partners and a motivated Joint Venture/Strategic Alliance Director.

And, even though, with this compensation split you would not be generating any profit from the sales the partnerships generate, you would be getting new buyers into your business for free with zero capital risk. 

In other words, you risk no money... and only pay-out partners and your Director from the money which comes in through their sales. 

When done this way, it's really a no-brainer for every entrepreneur. 

***
NOTE: If you're not in the E5 Nation Facebook Group with us yet, you're missing out on the opportunity to have me answer your questions. Not too mention, some killer content and live streams only shared inside the Group.

Go here and join us inside the E5 Nation Group (it's FREE!). 

ROCKSTAR RESOURCE

We run our companies with the EOS management model. We have for several years now. 

If you're not familiar with EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System), you can learn more here.

Part of the system is a specific structure to meetings, numbers, and accountability.

For organizing all of this, we use MyTractionTools. 

It's an online tool for running EOS meetings, displaying Scorecards, tracking company issues and solutions, assigning team tasks, etc.

We've been using MyTractionTools for a couple of years now. I couldn't imagine trying to run EOS without it. 

It's not cheap. But, it's well worth it to us.

PIC OF THE WEEK

Carly...

This little nugget has now been with us a year. Our little COVID dog. 

She's definitely calmed down a bit, but she's certainly still a little terror. 

She loves to play with Oreo. And lay with him. And also bully him, which is hysterical being that he's a sixty-five-pound male pit bull. She won't hesitate to walk up to Oreo and take the toy he's playing with right out of his mouth. 

And people food?

Yeah... she's lightning fast and willing to sacrifice her body to snag a taste. 

But... we love her. Especially Kel and the girls. 

WANT MORE HELP GROWING YOUR BUSINESS?

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