Go to a pond where you can visibly see a lot of fish. Take a stone and throw it in the water. Notice what the fish do? Yes, they race towards the stone in anticipation of a feeding frenzy?
Of course, you know what happens next.
The fish figure out you’re just teasing, and with disappointed guppy faces, they swim away. Um… if you continue to throw stones, they’ll keep coming back, till they work out it’s useless to humour you any more.
But what if you throw a piece of bread?
Aha, now it’s bedlam in the pond, isn’t it? The fish are not just attracted to the bread, but there’s not a shred of bread (hey, that rhymes!) left in the water.
You may not have figured it out instantly, but you went through three distinct steps of attraction, conversion, and consumption.
And it’s vital to separate the three if you want your marketing results to improve.
Why separate attraction, conversion, and consumption?
Separate? Why do the three factors need to be separated? You’ll find your answer by listening to just about any ad on the radio.
Notice what they’re trying to do? They’re trying to sell your product by screaming louder than the previous radio ad. So what do they achieve? Why nothing. Because your brain shuts down and waits for the ad to die a natural 30-second death.
But what if the radio ad concentrated solely on attraction? What if they focused on a specific target audience? What if they offered a free-something or a discount or bonus? What if all you had to do was call or email or write in or visit?
The company that put the radio ad on the air would then be able to clinically measure the response of the ad.
They’d be able to accurately measure if their ad was able to get their target audience’s attention in the first place. And once they maximised the attraction factor, they could move on…
Down the road to conversion
Instead of being unable to measure general traffic from specific ad-driven traffic, they’d now have an exact figure of prospects who’ve opted in.
Now they can speak to these prospects on a completely different level. These prospects are asking to be converted. They are keen on being sold, if the offer is right. Now all the company’s got to do is create a compelling offer that will get the prospects to say ‘Yes, yes and yes!’
To speed up conversion, here are some tips:
1) Tell the full story
2) Create Urgency
3) Reduce Choice Chaos
And phew, it’s consumption time…Finally!
As we’ve clearly demonstrated by filling ponds with stones, anyone can do the attraction bit without too much trouble. With a little understanding of what causes customers to buy, you may also get the customer to zip-zap that credit card and purchase your product/service.
But that doesn’t mean you can make them consume what they’ve just bought. No siree…that ain’t gonna happen. They aren’t going to ‘consume’ what they’ve bought, and therefore create a big dent in your future profit.
How would a lack of consumption cause a dent?
Because the real profit-margin isn’t in the first sale. Or rather, the real profit-margin is extremely tiny in the first sale. It’s when the customer comes back time and time again to buy, that you are really getting the kind of profits you’re looking for.
Er, did I say profits? I meant pretty substantial profits!
The customer who comes back, is now more likely to buy in larger amounts than ever before. A Psychotactics customer usually goes in the sequence of:
1) The Brain Audit
2) The Membership at 5000bc
3) The Brain Audit Applications
4) Courses such as Product Creation/Copywriting, etc.
5) The Protege Program
Each of the levels are more comprehensive, and costs more than the first level. But until and unless the customer actually ‘consumes’ the Brain Audit, he/she doesn’t come back for more. Yes, they’re attracted to the Psychotactics site and subscribed and read the articles (See? Three distinct steps!)
Yes, they are attracted to the Brain Audit and convert by buying the product. But it’s only when they consume the product that they move up the chain to buy more comprehensive and higher priced products.
What works for products works for services
It’s not a whole lot different, despite what you think. The concept of attraction, conversion and consumption apply to both services and products.
Which kind of brings us back to the fish pond
The trio of attraction, conversion and consumption are equally important. But attraction is marginally easier.
Work really hard on conversion. Because if you don’t get to conversion, you don’t move to third base… namely consumption.
And if you can attract, but can’t create a feeding frenzy with conversion, it’s just a stone in the pond.
A stone that gets no results.