The mathematical point of marketing paired with human nature.

Introduction

What has served marketers years ago doesn’t work in today’s competitive environment. Just look around in your industry. Everyone is doing the same, sending the same E-Mails, the same promotions, and the same unbelievable claims wrapped around scarcity and hype that would even insult the intelligence of a ten-year-old kid.

No wonder that consumers have lost their trust and become more skeptical. And can you blame them? Not really.

Let’s face it. Every self-proclaimed expert tells you to have good landing pages, an irresistible offer, send out emails, and so much else. Just Google “How to grow a business” and you’ll find a zillion things you must do: Blogging, Facebook PPC, Lead Generation, Newsletter, get featured on Entrepreneur Magazine, build your Funnel, Copywriting, Affiliate – yeah, for sure. As if you had so much time to do all this stuff.

It only leaves you in a, what I call, tactic maneuver hell.

You don’t have the time and you shouldn’t do all of it. Why? Money loves speed, there isn’t time to do it all. You have to find out what tactic earns you the most money and which are costing you money.

There is something that I call the Marketing Intersection and it helps you to understand how marketing is meant to be done. Truth is, there is too much information out there. So, I’ll keep it simple and short. The Marketing Intersection will

• lift the curtains behind marketing,
• show you the missing link behind successful advertising,
• how to put every piece in the correct place and
• where you should invest your money and more importantly
• where you should divert your attention to (time aspect)

There is one thing you should need to know: I am not doing this sell your something. Nowhere on this site is a newsletter form, I’ll not throw in a bunch of invaluable booklets and bonuses. No scarcity, no hype.

I am – like you – a business owner, a marketer. You can read more about here.

On this site I want to show you what works for me. The principles are based on mathematics and human nature. No fancy words to redescribe something that everyone knows. Because this is what most gurus do. They come up with acronyms for things that have been known in the marketing world for decades just to sell it as secret sauce to get more leads, have better advertising response whatsoever.

Will this work for my business?

Jop. Sure, every business is different, different challenges, different goals, different legal issues and dozens of other obstacles.

There isn’t a one-size-fits-all marketing system. And never be will one. If you don’t lift a finger, this also will not work.

You will see the concept on this site. It’ll help you to understand how each piece of the puzzle works together – and this is my sole goal here. You will need some hours of planning, implementing and testing, jop. But that’s it. (Haha, sounds easy)

But before it can work for you, you need to understand three fundamental truths.

Fact #1: People want what they want and
not what you want them to want

Most business owners try to sell their product to people who don’t want this particular kind of product. And its madness. It doesn’t matter how good your advertising is, it will inevitably fail. So, tell me what does your ideal customer really want?

What experience does he crave? What problem will he solve with your product? If you speculate here, then everything you do with your marketing will fail.

I’ll be blunt with you. Just because you have a better product will not lead to many customers. The idea of inventing a better mouse trap and hundreds of people will fall with the door in your house will lead to entrepreneurial failure. Without a single doubt.

No matter how valuable you believe your product is, is it really what your customers want? Will it help them to solve the problem they deeply care about? If not, you should go back to the drawing board and redefine your product before you can start thinking about any marketing strategy.

Fact #2: Value is in the eye of the money holder

You think your product is the best? But what about your customers? Do they think the same? Or did they classify your product as a mere commodity?

How many times did you play with the thought of lowering your prices to get more customers and then after you achieve this, increasing them again? Do it and people will always expect low prices.

Not to mention that low prices are not a good strategy to grow any business. Don’t play the game of who can go lower. Because there will always be someone who will cut prices.

If you want to attract customers that buy over and over, stay loyal to your brand you need to accept the fact that value is in the eye of the money holder. And if you try to change the perception of your prospects, you’ll fail.

When we talk about the buyer journeys soon, you’ll find out why this happens and what you can do to avoid it.

Fact #3: Relevance

You need to be relevant. And by that, I mean you need to tell your customers what they want to hear. Have you ever heard about objections like “I don’t need that right now”, “Not now, I’ll have to talk with someone about it” etc.?

It is because you haven’t been relevant. Let’s assume someone suffers from acne. These people no longer want to go out with their friends, they hate the idea of having their picture taken and just want to hide.

Telling this person, he has a problem is ridiculous. He knows it. He wants to have it gone. He wants to live his life again. Shoving him an ad in his face and dramatizing about how bad it is, is counterproductive.

However, if you show them a solution that speaks directly to their desires, you’ll get their attention. Instead of saying, “Acne is terrible! You need this product!” which they already know, you should focus on the outcome they crave.

For example, say something like:

“Imagine waking up with clear skin, feeling confident in every photo, and never worrying about hiding behind makeup or filters again. Here’s how thousands have done it with this simple solution.”

Now, you’re relevant. You’re speaking to their emotions, their aspirations, and their end goal. The key is to position your message in a way that aligns with what they want, not just what you’re selling.

And now that we have talked about this, let’s find out why this approach works.

Two principles stand behind the intersection

Mathematics and human nature. Mathematics is the closest way to obtain definite answers. You can remove or optimize weak links based on numbers. Not gut feeling or emotions.

When you know what works, you can replicate it, invest more and have more revenue.

Human nature hasn’t changed over the last decades. Strategies have changed, what worked 50 years ago no longer works, yet the thriving principles of human nature haven’t changed.

We combine both principles and build the Marketing Intersection.

Shall we? Then let’s start with the first step.

The Laws of Human Nature

The good thing is that human nature hasn’t changed over the last decades. People act with the same principles. We can leverage this to and construct a buyer journey.

Not a customer journey. A customer journey begins after the lead became a customer. Hence the name customer journey. The buyer journey is the awarness of your potential customers.

Everyone goes through these stages. In every industry, no matter the product or service. If you don’t respect them in your advertisements, on your pages you will miss the mark. Maybe sometimes it’ll work but you’ll never know why and can’t replicate the success.

Before we take a look at the buyer journey, let me ask you a question first.

Do you know your audience?

If you say yes, take a deep breath and think about the acne story from above.

Before you can write advertisements, heck, before you can even lay out your marketing strategy you need to know what is going on in the head of your audience.

If you can’t do that, how can you expect to have successful advertisements that attract repeat buyers?

Don’t skip this work. Don’t think you already know what your audience is thinking just because you’ve been selling to them for years.

This ties back to the fact of being relevant. Everything you do must be relevant for your audience. Their problems, their hopes and dreams. It’s not about you; it’s about your audience.

Don’t fall in love with your product. Fall in love with your audience.

Start to talk with your past and current customers. If you want to find out why people have bought your product, ask them. That’s the best source.

The people who are in your current audience should be at the heart of your messaging. Tell them everything they want to hear. And you will only find these messaging bits if you conduct quality research.

There’s no right or wrong approach to do market research. I advise spending up to one week finding out what your audience is really thinking. In today’s world this has become easy.

There are forums for everything. There is Reddit, Facebook, and Instagram. Find them and read what they have to say. Go down the rabbit hole. You don’t need to fill out a questionnaire like some copywriters say, just to have the feeling of being “done”.

Think about your ideal customer as a human being. Not as a target for your advertising messages per se.

He has goals, dreams, values, problems that keep him awake at night, expectations for his life and so much more.

The last thing someone needs is an advertising message. And if you think about this, it makes sense, but if you’d known how many marketers don’t understand this, you’ll be shocked.

You simply can’t just shove someone your ad in the face and expect a good response. So, before you can start writing your message that will resonate with your reader, you need to understand him.

1. What are his goals? His values, dreams. And also, what are his problems?
2. What attitudes does he have? Religious, political, social, and economic-wise?
3. What are his hopes and dreams?
4. Does he have any prejudices?
5. What are his goals? Personal and business wise?
6. What is he struggling with on a daily basis?
7. What keeps him awake at night?
8. What are his excuses to put his problem to the side? As well as potential solutions.
9. Did he try something before that didn’t work? If so, what was the experience like? Are there horror stories other people have experienced?
10. What are his usual objections about purchasing your product?
11. What are common beliefs he has about your industry/market?
12. If he could wave a magic wand once, what would he change about his situation overnight?

Get this right and then you can start researching what your ideal customer uses. In 99% of all cases the market is already using a similar product or service that you offer.

So, you need to find out what works, what not, what the experience of solutions has been like and what the market likes and dislikes.

You’ll find it out by reading a lot of reviews and visiting forums. You may uncover horror stories about existing solutions, bad experiences and also great encounters with them.

In fact, you should take notes about the messages that keep coming up over and over again. What are the problems they try to solve? What keeps them awake at night? What do they crave, what do they deeply care about?

If you know this stuff. Then you know what you need to say to resonate with them. So that your sales message is relevant to them.

The goal is to get a “Hey! That’s exactly how I feel!” when your audience reads your messages.

Personally, I think you should not waste time on things like what degree he has, where he went to school, etc.

Psychological Information > Demographics

Admitted. If you run a local business you should definitely know the demographics. Yet, you always need to know what your ideal audience is thinking, otherwise you will have a hard time writing ad copy that is relevant for them.

When you understand your audience it’s time for probably the most important part.

The Relevance of the Buyer Journey

There is one single rule that you must obey.

Join the conversation that is the most present and valuable in his
mind at that moment.

Get this right and you know more than most marketers I know. And this isn’t an overstatement. I truly mean that.

If your ad or in general your sales message is not relevant for your reader, then why should he read it? If someone knows that he has a particular problem and is looking for solutions, do you think it will help if you start to dramatize how bad it is? No, he knows his problem and wants to solve it badly. Don’t tell someone what they already know. And don’t tell someone what he doesn’t want to hear right now.

How can you do that?

Whenever you write your advertisements, your landing pages, or your content for social media, whatever you do, ask yourself this one question

What is the most present and valuable conversation in the mind of my reader?

Nothing else matters. I won’t go into great detail about the copywriting aspect here. Yet there is one thing I can promise you. If you know the conversation that your potential reader has in his mind right now, you’ll have no problem connecting with him through your words.

It’s not about getting attention in the sense of getting attention. Good luck trying that out.

People focus too much on standing out, being interesting, thinking outside the box and all other clichés that you hear in the advertising industry.

To have success with your ads you must communicate the value of your product so the readers see the value of what you’re promoting and decide to take action.

These are the principles why some advertisements work, some don’t and most people don’t know why. And you can tie it back to the relevance of your message. The message. Your sales copy.

Whether it’s in the ad, the blog content, on social media. If it’s not relevant to your reader, then he will not read it.

It’s simple as that. But if you know whats happening in the mind of your reader in this very moment, you can build a connection that is relevant for him. Hence, he will listen.

In the Ignite stage I’ve told you you must communicate the right message at the right time within the right media, remember? And you do this by joining the conversation that is the most present and valuable in his mind at the moment he will probably be exposed to your message.

Now, let’s find out what happens in the mind of people throughout the different stages of their buyer journey.

Why? Because each stage will have a different relevancy. You know by now that you need to join the most valuable and present message of your readers. If you don’t know this message and can’t build a – figuratively speaking – bridge to their mind, your efforts will fail.

How does the journey look like?

These stages have been defined a long time ago by the copywriting legend Eugene M. Schwartz. If you haven’t read his book Breakthrough Advertising, I highly encourage you to do so. It worked decades ago and is still more than relevant today.

And still most marketers I know don’t know these stages and just write marketing messages purely based on a customer avatar. While that is a great start it hinders the effectiveness of your advertisements tremendously.

Unaware

They are unaware of their problem. They don’t even know that they have a problem. Needless to say, if you try to sell them a solution it will fail.

Someone who is overweight but doesn’t need that he needs to lose weight.

So, what should you do? These people don’t care about you, nor the value you could provide for them. So, you better keep it quiet. There are many marketers who ignore unaware people. And the reason is quite simple: It’s hard to sell them something.

This is why you should not sell anything, nor promise. Rather inform him that he may have a serious problem and that you can help him. Even a limited time offer will not work because they are not interested in purchasing.

If you can build a relationship from the beginning and guide him along his way, you have no problem asking for the sale later.

So, what is the best way to connect with those people? First of all, you need to make him clear that he has a serious problem due to him being overweight. Go on and reveal the source behind this problem and present him with a mere concept of the solution.

And then? Give him a frictionless way to request more information. The best approach here is to relate with him through stories, myths, and vivid statistics.

Problem Aware

These are people who know that they have a problem and want to solve it. You don’t have to go miles to explain in a subtle manner that they have a problem. They know that.

But the thing here is that they are not interested in any specific kind of product or service yet.

Someone who knows he has health problems due to his overweight.

He is conducting quality research. He wants to learn about his problem and how it can be solved. If you offer him a product in this stage, ramble about how great you are – your ton of social proof – and how superior you are, he will ignore it and toss the ad away.

He doesn’t want to hear a sales pitch; he needs information and guidance.

Search Ads are often mentioned for this stage because they work great. People who search for ways to solve their problems can be easily found with Search Ads. But don’t get too focused on keywords, and search ads here. Such people can also be reached on blogs, in diverse Facebook Groups as well as offline in the right magazines.

What you want here is to collect their contact information by offering valuable resources that address their problem. Address the problem in such a way that your customer realizes how badly they need the solution.

Solution Aware

Your prospect is done with his research in this phase. He understands his problem and how crucial it is to solve it.

The overweight person decided to buy the best weight-loss supplement.

He also knows the different kinds of solutions.

Different kinds?

Yes, if you’re selling weight-loss supplements e.g. to overweight people you have more than just other supplement companies who compete against you. You also have to deal with gyms and coaches who are selling a different kind of solution to the same problem: weight-loss.

The challenge here is that such people have made their mind up. They have a specific price in mind and what specific ingredients the supplement should have.

You can’t change his mind. Never ever try to do that. What you want to do here is to help him to decide between all available options.

What falls into this category? Comparison guides for example. A breakdown of your product against other well-known competitors. If you can offer a demo or a free trial, good. Provide customer testimonials, anything that will help him to conclude his research.

People here have a fundamental need of validation and reassurance. They don’t want to purchase something that could make them look like a fool.

The value of your product is in the eyes of the money holder, not in yours.

What does this mean? People in this stage have decided to purchase a specific product. Let’s take as an example a weight-loss supplement. They are looking for the best weight-loss supplement, just like the overweight person who was looking for the best weight-loss program.

Every business says, “we have the best product or service.” You do it too probably. And you know that your competitors also do it.

But what does best mean for your prospects here? If you don’t know that your sales copy will fail. Okay, so what should I do?

Find out what best means for your ideal customers. Give them all the information they need. A transparent breakdown of your features and benefits, stacked against competitors. If you do something different, tell them why. The more proof – at best social proof – you have the better.

And then argument why you are the best by providing all necessary facts they need to conclude their research and choose you over your competitors.

Product Aware

People here have narrowed down their decision on a specific product. He knows the product but doesn’t yet want it.

The overweight person has found the best weight-loss program.

This is where you need to make the right offer and present your brand as the best. But please don’t just say “we are the best”. That doesn’t work anymore. Define “best”.

Present them your unique selling points, show your social proof, customer reviews, case studies, etc.

People generally here need an incentive to purchase. This is where you would classify discounts and special deals. Reinforce the desire for your product and show him how it will help him to solve his problem.

The bulk of all advertising happens here. You don’t need to educate them about a problem, about solutions, they know that. They’re past that stage. The overweight person has found the best weight-loss supplement. He is aware of the benefits he will experience with this very product. And he knows what problems he will solve with it.

So, don’t talk about problems and solutions. Talk about your product. Tell him why he should choose you over all the other products that are out there.

To be exact, here is what I’d recommend doing when writing advertisements or sales copy in general. Also valid for product pages.

First of all, show them why you are superior. Don’t just list features, prove why competitors fall short. A good example that I always see is “We have the best customer service” So, everyone says that. Does this mean your competitors have bad service?

State it like this “Our support team responds in under 60 seconds, 24/7”

Now this is a case of superior customer service.

Then, make the purchase decision a no-brainer. You know you should make the offer and name the price. Here we use superb discounts paired with money-back guarantees if possible.

For example, “For the next 48 hours, get 20% off AND a free lifetime warranty” – this is a tremendous deal.

And the last thing I’d recommend is to always sharpen their vision of your product and how it will satisfy their needs. Think back to our imaginary Glowing Skin care brand. You’ve written a great ad, and you bring the traffic to the product page.

Instead of “Our skincare gives you glowing skin”, rather say “Imagine waking up to smooth, radiant skin—without makeup. Our serum reduces wrinkles by 42% in 30 days!”

It goes without saying… but you always need to be specific and as exact as possible when writing sales copy. This principle must be applied to all marketing stages.

Most Aware

The overweight person is ready to purchase the weight-loss program.

They are ready to make the purchase. Make the right offer and present your brand again as the best solution. Provide enough reassurance that they are doing the right thing.

Make sure that your purchase process is simple. Explain it if necessary and address any final objections they may have. FAQs on product pages for example are designed for these people.

What happens after I hit the purchase button? Tell them. Most business leave their customers in the dark. Don’t fall into that trap.

The Prism Model

People come to your business from different directions, some need to give rightaway, some need to yield. Some campaigns need to do the same. Without an intersection there would be chaos. In todays world there are too many cars, too many reckless drivers. The same applies in advertising or generally speaking in marketing.

For you as a business owner – a marketer – this means you need to define your strategies and your tactics. Otherwise they’ll crash and your marketing is stuck.

Personally I found it to be easy to think about five distinct steps of marketing

1. Ignite (initial awareness & connection)
2. Gather (collecting leads)
3. Nurture (nurturing leads)
4. Activate (turning leads into customers)
5. Flourish (ensuring long-term customer satisfaction)

Each step has its own focus. The one in the round brackets. Later you will define also a distinct buyer journey to each step. Whatever you do, it will fall in one of these categories.

Let’s go over each step and define why its needed and what you should do in there. Throughout these stages I will refer to a made-up beauty brand called Glowing Skin. So, it will be easier for you to understand what exactly is going on in these stages.

Ignite

The beauty brand, “Glowing Skin,” wants to introduce their new line of natural skincare products.

They create a series of ads featuring beautiful models with glowing skin and run them on popular social media platforms

The goal is to get your brand in front of your ideal audience. Making them aware of your existence and spark initial interest. You’ll use social media campaigns, search engine ads, blog content or anything else to capture the attention of potential prospects.

It actually isn’t from relevance what you use. Whether it is paid ads or free content.

In general sense you could say this is where all your advertisements fall into. Blogging, Search Engine Optimization whatever you do to be “found”. This is what the Ignite stage is about.

I specifically want to emphasize advertising here. Advertising in the sense of using paid ads. Whether it is pay-per-click, pay-per-impression, ads on other sites, in magazines whatever.

If you have lost money in the past with ineffective advertising, then let’s talk about it now. The effectiveness of your ad can be boiled down to three conditions. Get all three right, you’re golden, just miss one and the ad will probably fail miserably.

Communicate the right message (1) at the right time (2) within the right media (3)

If you have the right message and audience but the wrong media, your ad won’t reach them effectively. If you have the right media and message but target the wrong audience (who will not see your message as relevant) the ad will fall flat.

And if you have the right media and audience but a weak message, the impact will be meager. If one of these three elements is off, the effectiveness of the campaign suffers.

Your job is to get all three parts right.

This leads to the fundamental rule that it’s irrelevant where your ad runs. Whether you run a search ad, an ad in the newspaper, or on the radio. It’s meaningless.

So many people try to find out how to write search ads. Then, they decide to run some ads on Facebook. So, they search for information on how to write ads on Facebook that work. The same is repeated then for how ads run on Pinterest and so on and so forth.

Gather

Collecting leads involves creating an appealing message that resonates with your target audience, making them interested in learning more about your offer.

Glowing Skin creates targeted Facebook ads highlighting the benefits of their products for specific skin types (e.g., acne-prone, dry, or mature skin) offering DIY guides

I think you’ve been bombarded with a ton of information about this stage. The ominous lead capture stage. The money is in the list and all that other rubbish regarding this stage.

The common idea is to provide information for free. A book, a newsletter, a case study, or the DIY guide. Then you build the list, shoot an email, ask for the sale.

The result? Horrible. Almost no sales. You’ve been marked as spammer, people unsubscribe. While the idea is great behind this strategy of lead generation. If you do it this way, it’ll fail. That’s why it is to be relevant for the people on your list.

Where do I want to go with this? I am talking about the quality of leads. Not the quantity. It does not matter how many leads you acquire, if none of them buy.

The issue is that many businesses attract freebie seekers with this strategy. People who have no intend purchase. Your job is to quickly weed them out.

It’s a fact that you will always have people who will never buy. It’s unfortunate, yes, but that’s just how it is. Not everyone will become a customer.

So, when you offer free information to get people on your list you need to ask as soon as possible for a sale. Completely fine if it’s a low-cost product and you lose money upfront. Later when we talk about the KPIs you will see why it is okay to lose money to acquire customers.

Let’s take a look at the follow-up stage now and why the money is in the list is in most cases rubbish.

Nurture

Nurturing leads means providing value and building trust through email follow-ups or other communication channels, ultimately giving prospects the opportunity to acquire your offer (e.g., make a purchase).

Glowing Skin sets up an email marketing campaign that feature product tutorials and special promotions

Here you want to build trust through consistent follow-up. Mostly achieved by email marketing campaigns, personalized content and social media engagement. You may also use remarketing campaigns through Google Ads, Facebook, etc.

Whatever you do, at this stage you want to maintain regular contact with your leads. If we go back to the Gather stage. The brand Glowing Skin has offered DIY guides, remember?

Now, we have contact information about those people and depending on what DIY guide the downloaded (acne-prone, dry or mature skin) we need different marketing campaigns. Again, we must be relevant.

Let’s say Glowing Skin offers a low-cost sample of a face mask for acne-prone skin. They use this offer and send the email to this specific list. To the list of acne-prone people not to the people who suffer from dry skin. Then the message wouldn’t be relevant.

The idea is to ask for the sale as soon as possible.

You don’t need to sell your most expensive product here. Offer something that will complement the free information. Offering a sample for the DIY guide is an excellent way to weed out the people who will not purchase. And by that, I mean that there always will be people on your list with no intend to buy. You need to get rid of them as soon as possible.

This also means you will inevitably lose some people on your list – and that isn’t just okay, its necessary. You don’t want to waste your time with people who don’t intend to purchase from you. So, if you can, offer a low-cost product to those people and if they don’t purchase, follow up, but if they don’t buy after the third email, get rid of them.

Yes, this may sound hard. But the issue is that too many business owners waste their time with a huge list of leads that are purely there for free information. They don’t want to buy; they want free stuff.

Activate

Turning leads into customers is all about creating an irresistible call-to-action that prompts prospects to take the desired action.

Glowing Skin creates a limited-time offer (e.g., 20% off first-time purchases) for new subscribers who sign up for their email list

With the first three steps you should have a good audience that knows you as a brand and what you stand for. Your offers. Your prices. Your job here is to ask for the sale. Present them your best offer and provide enough sales copy to tackle their objections.

People here need foremost reassurance and a smooth, simple purchasing process.

Flourish

You got a sale. What is more important is that you have won enough trust that someone was willing to purchase your product.

After acquiring your product, it’s essential to ensure that customers are satisfied and remain loyal through post-purchase follow-ups or loyalty programs.

Glowing Skin sets up a loyalty program that rewards repeat customers with points redeemable for free products or discounts on future purchases.

The laid out Marketing Intersection

If you tie together the buyer journeys and all five stages or buckets of marketing, you can see the picture.

The first step is to drop everything you’re doing right now. Stop testing offers, channels, prices, sales copy, whatsoever. Especially if you don’t have a way to measure them.

You need to get away from this approach…

I just need more sales. I need to keep this within our budget. I can’t afford that. If this doesn’t produce at least $X within next month, I’ll drop it for good.

You better drop this behavior right now. Imagine you’re stranded in the middle of the ocean with just one flare. One shot to catch the attention of a passing ship. If they don’t see it, you’re out of luck, left drifting, hoping for another miracle.

That’s exactly how many business owners treat their marketing. They fire off a single message, cross their fingers, and pray for a quick cash injection.

Without a system, every marketing effort is a desperate SOS. If one attempt fails, you’re scrambling for another quick-fix solution. You end up targeting customers who are either price shoppers or people who need a ton of convincing both of which drain your profits.

And we don’t want that. So, let’s start to combine the laws of human nature with the five stages of any successful marketing system and create our intersection.

And I’ll show you what that means for your business, how you should interpret it and what to do with your advertising dollars.

Ignite (the advertising part) + Human Nature

In the Ignite stage you can write advertisements for all stages of the buyer journey. Whether it is for unaware, problem, solution or product aware prospects.

The relevance of your advertisement is the important part here. Don’t try to write an ad that explains the solution, but is then exposed to people who are already solution aware.

Choose your channels wisely. Don’t forget that you must communicate the right message, at the right time within the right media.

Gather (lead part) + Human Nature

In the Gather stage you will probably target in most cases problem aware people. These people know their problem and are actively searching for solutions.

Your job is to collect their contact information by offering valuable resources that addresses their problem. Offer comprehensive guides or eBooks that delve into the problem and potential solutions. You may provide an exlusive discount or special offer for those who sign up or download your information.

For the solution aware people you must use a different strategy. As you remember, these people want reassurance. They have made their mind up regarding the benefits your type of product. And they have decided what they believe they should pay.

Showcase how your product is superior and may fit into their “best” category. Provide a free trial so they can inspect your solution on their own. Detailed case studies and testimonials that illustrate real-world examples of how your solution has effectively solved similar problems.

Nurture (follow-up) + Human Nature

E-Mail marketing is the puzzle part that would fit in here. Based on the buyer journeys you need different lists. You can’t send the same emails to different stages. Someone who is problem aware must be treated differently than the solution aware people.

You will probably also have a different list for existing customers, as well as for people that are in the most aware stage.

They all need different sales copy. Different offers. A different approach. This is the crucial part that many marketers ignore. They have a mixed list of problem and solution aware people. Some emails work, some don’t and they never know why.

You need to be relevant, remember? The right message, at the right time within the right media. The media is your email. Now you still need the correct message for the conversation that is currently the most important and valuable in their mind at that moment.

Another part here is remarketing. People who came to your site and left. With Google and also Facebook you can use remarketing advertisements to bring them back to your site.

Activate (conversion) + Human Nature

The conversion part. You ask for the sale. In this case the people are aware of your product (most aware buyer stage), if they came from your list.

Yet, it can also happen that solution aware people come to your product page through advertisements or word-of-mouth marketing and purchase your product.

Can it happen that problem-aware people buy? Yes.

It all depends on what kind of product you have as well as the price. “Cheap” products, anywhere under $100 don’t need a lot of justification. Higher priced products often need more sales copy, a longer FAQ section, more social proof, money-back guarantees and so on.

If you connect with unaware as well as problem aware people through advertisements, gather their information, nurture through valuable content you will have a high conversion rate. Running paid ads to your product page directly can lead to low conversion rates if you don’t know in what stage your visitors are.

One thing here is important. Provide reassurance and a smooth purchase process. Overcome objections, provide guarantees if possible and all in all have a strong offer.

Flourish (post-purchase)

You got a sale. What’s more important is that you earned trust of a human being. You got yourself a customer. Someone who believes in your values.

Say thank you to them. Move them to your customer list. Build a lasting relationship that encourages repeat purchases. Ask for referrals and testimonials.

This is where the Customer Journey begins. Only then. Before the purchase we only need to talk about the Buyer Journey.

Mathematical metrics for all stages

Each stage of our intersection has it’s own metrics you must track. Their own Key Performance Indicators if you prefer this name.

I will go over each piece and show you the metric, why it matters and how you can track it. Then we will talk about your very own marketing plan and it’s campaigns. (That’s the best way I’ve found to organize my efforts)

Ignite Metrics

When you run advertisements in the broader sense, you want to track three metrics.

1. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
2. Cost per Lead (CPL)
3. Lead to Conversion Rate (LCR)

Customer Acquistion Cost (CAC)

It’s the total amount of money you spend on marketing and sales efforts to gain one new customer.

The idea is that the CAC is always lower than the revenue you make from a new customer. There is one exception to this rule. If your customer as a high Lifetime Value (LTV) then your CAC can be higher in the beginning.

The LTV? How often does a customer purchase from you and how long does he stays with you on average? If a new customer comes to your business and purchases on average four times a year, with an average price of $19.99 your LTV for one year would be $79,96.

And if we know that this is the average for around four years. We know that a customer from a particular channel will net us in four years $319,84. Now, our CAC would be ideally lower than $319,84 of course.

Concering pay per click advertisement you will often have a high CAC. Depending on the keywords and your industry. The costs are sometimes lunatic, I know.

Yet, if you know your LTV then you can afford to invest more, not because you think you can; no. Because you know it based on numbers.

The CAC is calculcated through

CAC = (Total Marketing and Sales Costs) / (Number of New Customers Acquired)

So, if you spend $10,000 on marketing and sales and acquire 100 new customers, your CAC would be $10,000 / 100 = $100.

Cost per Lead (CPL)

You invest your money in acquiring leads (potential customers) in the hopes they will eventually purchase. This metric is especially important because people don’t immediately purchase, rather make an account, sign up for a newsletter, or downloaded some sort of informational content.

It wouldn’t make sense to spend more on leads than what they’re worth. You need to ensure that the cost of acquiring a lead makes sense in the relation of the potential revenue that lead could generate.

In other words the CPL can be interpreted as the cost-effectiveness of your leads. Just like the CAC we can’t look at it in isolation.

You need to consider your CPL for all advertisement campaigns in conjunction with the LTV and also the Lead to Converison Rate to understand the full picture.

Cost Per Lead (CPL) = Total Marketing Spend / Total Number of Leads Generated

So, if you spent $1000 on a marketing campaign and it resulted in 100 leads, your CPL would be $1000 / 100 = $10. This means, on average, you spent $10 to acquire each lead.

Lead to Conversion Rate (LCR)

The number of leads is irrelevant. If you don’t know this number. You want to maximize the Lead to Conversion Rate. This is especially important if you have a high CPL.

It also helps you to identify the quality of your leads. It gives you a definite answer if you attract the right kind of leads who are geniuinely interested in your product. Or if they are just freebie seekers with no intent to every purchase from you.

But it can also mean that your Nurture part is bad. Mixed up lists with different buyer journeys and the wrong (not relevant) content may be send to them. Hence a low LCR.

Lead to Conversion Rate = (Number of New Customers / Number of Leads) × 100

So, if you had 1000 leads and 250 of them became customers, your Lead to Conersion Rate would be (250/1000) × 100 = 25%. This means you successfully converted 25% of your leads into customers.

Gather Metrics

Here the focus should be on

1. Cost per Lead
2. Lead to Conversion Rate
3. Conversion Cycle

CPL and LCR give you the answer if your lead generation process is of good quality. As well as if your follow-up sequences are aligned for each buyer journey.

Conversion Cycle (CC)

This number gives you confidence for cashflow planning. How long does it take that a lead becomes a customer? 30 days? 60 days?

If you know this number you can plan with your marketing budget. The number will be higher or lower depending on the channel. This is a quite interesting observation. I’ve found that some leads purchase sooner than other purely based on the medium I acquired them.

Knowing this number will also be important to forecast the revenue from specific marketing campaigns. We’ll talk about this at the end of this post in greater detail.

Conversion Cycle (CC) = Days / Total Number of Leads Generated

What is meant with days? For all leads track the date they shared their contact information with you and the date when they purchased their first product from you. Sum this number up for all leads generated and you have your average CC in days.

Nurture Metrics

For the Nurture part you solely focus on both LCR and CC. It’ll show you how good you are with your follow-up with your different lists.

Activate Metrics

For the conversion part we track

1. Conversion Rate (CR)
2. Average Order Value (AOV)

Conversion Rate (CR)

Mind the context here. A “conversion” is the completion of a desired action. This action can and will vary depending on the goal of your campaign. It may be the purchase itself, signing up for a newsletter or downloading a piece of information.

For the Activate stage our desired action is the purchase. There are dozens of courses and books for conversion rate optimization. Personally I think if you did a great job in the previous stages your converison rate is high.

If you send a limited-time offer to the people on your list that are most aware, as well as solution aware it will be a high CR. Whereas the CR will be lower for problem aware.

Calculating it should be done with a great attention to the detail otherwise you get a completely wrong number. Send the email, make your offer and make sure that you have a way to track the number of people who clicked on the link and then landed on the page. Utilize UTM parameters and a good web analytic software. (If you’re in the EU – or have visitors from there – don’t use Google Analytics for gods sake.)

Conversion Rate (CR) = (Number of Conversions / Number of People Who Purchased) × 100

So if your sales page had 500 visitors from the email campaign and 50 of them made a purchase, your conversion rate would be (50 / 500) × 100 = 10%

Average Order Value (AOV)

Increasing the AOV is a surefire way to grow your revenue. Perhaps even double it. It gives you a deeper understanding of your customers’ spending habits. And it also provides you with the insight of how much revenue you can expect from a typical customer.

What you should considere is using upsells and cross-sells during the checkout. If you are a ecommerce business. Suggest products that may fit with the ones in the cart and often it’ll be added to the cart.

It’s a cost-effective strategy to increase your revenue without needing to attract more customers.

Average Order Value (AOV) = Total Revenue / Number of Transactions

For example, if your online store generated $10,000 in revenue from 200 transactions, the AOV would be $10,000 / 200 = $50. This means that, on average, customers spend $50 each time they shop at your online store.

Yes, it is almost irrelevant if you run a SaaS business. The AOV will always be same if you don’t also provide paid support, or bonuses to increase the AOV. If you can come up with additional products that would make sense, then do it.

For most SaaS companies this metric is meaningless indeed.

Flourish Metrics

Now that you have your customers, you need some numbers to keep track of them. Don’t just count the number of existing customers. That’s pointless.

Track the following metrics

1. Churn Rate
2. Review Rate
3. Referral Rate

The first metric tells you how many customers you loose. The other two show you how good your relationship really is. Remember, word-of-mouth marketing always trumps anything that you say.

Getting referrals and testimonials (reviews) is your goal here. Anything that you can use as social proof is superb.

Churn Rate

Don’t get too caught up with this number. You need to see the big picture. Yes, the churn rate tells you how many customers you lost during a period of time. And while loosing customers is always a bad thing – and must be investigated why – it might not be a serious problem regarding the churn rate.

Why so? If you can fill the water faster than the water is leaking out, then you might ignore it. Take a look at the churn rate in the context of the Lifetime Value as well as the Customer Acquisition Cost. This will show you if its a real problem or not.

Yes, loosing customers should be make you concerned. But sometimes people leave just because they do. Because they no longer need your product. Or because they’ve changed. Thinking back to the weight-loss example. Why purchasing more supplements if I am happy with my current bodyweight?

Churn Rate = (Number of Customers at the Start of the Period – Number of Customers at the End of the Period) / (Number of Customers at the Start of the Period) × 100

So, if you started the month with 200 customers and ended the month with 180 customers, your churn rate would be ((200-180)/200) × 100 = 10%.

This means that you lost 10% of your customers during that period.

Review Rate

As you can think, this number tells you how many reviews you get from existing customers. Getting reviews must be on your agenda. You can use them everywhere, almost for all buyer journeys.

And social proof always trumps your own sales copy. Or at least it can have a tremendous impact.

Review Rate = (Number of Reviews / Number of Customers) × 100

Referral Rate

How many referrals did you get? Don’t underestimate the power of referrals. If an existing customer likes your product so much that he tells his friends about it and thus they purchase from you, then you did a great job.

Yet, too many business owners wait for it to happen. Don’t do that. Encourage your existing customers to tell other people about how great your product is. Reward them with points, VIP programs, discounts, etc.

Referral Rate = (Number of Referrals / Number of Customers) × 100

Do I Need A Marketing Plan?

A marketing plan is a strategic document structured around multiple campaigns, each designed to target a specific audience at different stages of the buyer journey and marketing stages.

It serves as a roadmap that aligns your marketing activities with the objective of growing your business, whether it’s gaining more customers or increasing revenue.

For example, if your objective is to gain 10% more customers in the next month, the marketing plan lays out exactly how you’ll achieve that, with clear campaigns for each marketing stage.

What are the parts of a successful plan?

A plan has four parts, each one equally important.

• objective
• time-based
• budget
• associated campaigns

First you define the objective. If we take the example from above it may be to gain 10% more customers in the next month. And that’s a perfect objective because it also includes a time period. Next month will have a clear starting and end point.

Now, you also need to define a budget. How much can you afford to invest? As an example you might say $1,500. Then this is the budget for the plan.

The idea is then to structure appropriate campaigns around this objective. Of course each campaigns in total can’t exceed the plan budget.

Thinking like this gives you financial control. You no longer have dozens of campaigns “costing” you money without a clear supervisory authority. Your supervisory authority is the marketing plan. All campaigns need to adhere to it’s budget.

Especially in the beginning you may not have a big budget. And that’s totally fine. You don’t need to have it.

Personally I think its sometimes some sort of privilege to not have a lot of money for marketing purposes. Because it obliges you really need to think about each decision.

Associated campaigns?

You may add three campaigns to your plan that will help you to achieve the objective of gaining 10% more customers within the next month. Two campaigns may be in the Ignite Stage and target Problem Aware buyers. The third one is perhaps in the Nurture stage and delivers a time-limited offer to Solution Aware people on your list.

You see the idea? You take the five marketing stages as building blocks and pair them with the buyer journeys. You can use them as bricks to build your castle.

The campaign #1 can be a PPC ad, sure. It can run in a magazine, or it is a display ad on Reddit. It all doesn’t matter now.

What matters in this planning stage is that the ad should support the objective of the marketing plan. To get 10% more customers in the next month. If you have 100 customers and want to have 10% more, all your campaigns must work together to achieve this objective.

Here’s the thing I want to stress.

Marketing = Sales

Keep this in mind when defining your objective. You want to increase your revenue. How do we increase our revenue? By increasing either AOV, PF or the number of your customers.

These three numbers are tracked on the plan level. In our case the number of customers will be increased by 10%.

How to craft the perfect campaign

Each campaign is a tactical execution that fits into the broader strategy laid out in the marketing plan. A campaign will target a specific audience at a particular point in their buyer journey aligned with a specific marketing stage.

I want to emphasize something before we dive into the anatomy of a campaign. When I talk about campaign its not just an ad. I know, you hear campaign and immediately think about Google Ads, Facebook, whatsoever.

A campaign may be such, it can be an email sequence also. What you should keep in mind is that a campaign is always a tactical execution for your objective.

What is the anatomy of a campaign?

• customer avatar
• buyer journey
• marketing stage
• budget
• time-based
• channel
• metrics

All campaigns have an underlying customer avatar based on its buyer journey. You target a specific marketing stage, whether it is Ignite, Gather, Action, Nurture or Flourish.

It has a budget, but can’t exceed the budget of the supervisory authority aka your marketing plan. It is also time-based and runs in a channel, for example Google.

And based on the marketing stage you need to track its appropriate metrics. Do I need to track all metrics? I would say yes, if it’s possible. If all campaigns are in the Gather stage it will not make sense to track the Customer Acquisition Cost of course.

But ascending with all upcoming stages Nurture, Activate and Flourish you can track their metrics also.

Don’t worry you’ll see a full metric rundown soon. For now let’s find out what campaigns you could run in a specific stage.

Campaigns in the Ignite stage

A campaign here can be anything to connect with our audience. Advertisements that run in social media, search engine advertising, search engine optimization, content marketing, ads on blogs, in forums, and so on and so forth.

Do you still remember the magic triangle?

The triangle says

Communicate the right message (1) at the right time (2) within the right media (3)

This applies to advertisements as well as for content you publish.

Campaigns in the Gather stage

Here you offer lead magnets to provide valuable information or for solution-aware buyers a demonstration. The free-trial for SaaS, the sample product for ecommerce. Because the goal is here to provide value each campaign is designed to get the contact information of prospects.

So, a campaign can be a PPC ad that drives interested buyers to a landing page where they can download the information for free in exchange of their information. Or it can also be a content piece where at the end you offer a summary.

Campaigns in the Nurture stage

All emails you run are here, as well as remarketing ads through e.g. Facebook Pixel. Content sequences you publish on your blog and share on your social media profiles.

Our goals? Keep existing leads engaged with valuable content for their individual buyer journey, moving them closer to a purchasing decision. And the second goal is to segment all your leads based on their buyer journey.

The content will vary for someone who is problem aware, solution aware or product aware.

Campaigns in the Activate stage

For example card abondonment email sequences, emails itself that offer time-limited offers to your existing leads. Your product pages, your offers.

Remember, the goal is to remove barriers, so the purchasing process is as easy as possible. Provide social proof, customer testimonials, success stories, case studies, everything you can come up with to provide reassurance.

Campaigns in the Flourish stage

Your goal is to maximize existing business. Leverage your current customers and increase their purchase frequency. After the first purchase ensure customers feel confident about their purchase and provide post-purchase support if necessary.

Implement loyalty programs, offer VIP programs, point rewards for purchases. The end goal is to get referrals and as many reviews as possible.

Summary – The Marketing Intersection

When I presented the Prism model I have talked about the intersection. Let’s take a look at this intersection now, shall we?

You see, each stage can be controlled by specific KPIs. Each stage will have a focus, one or two main objectives of what you want to achieve and what buyer journeys you’ll encounter there.

Metric Rundown

You run a Google PPC ad alright? It’ll target problem aware buyers and ran for one consecutive month. The sales copy is irrelevant now.

It cost you $1,300. You got 28 leads and 9 customers afterwards. I’ll show you all metrics again, calculate them and at the end you’ll see the power behind all of this from a 40,000 foot view.

Let’s start with the Ignite stage – that also fits because you ran an ad here.

Customer Acqusition Cost

CAC = (Total Marketing and Sales Costs) / (Number of New Customers Acquired)

You spend $1,300 and got 9 customers after a certain amount of time. Your CAC would be $1,300 / 9 = $144,44.

Cost per Lead

Cost Per Lead (CPL) = Total Marketing Spend / Total Number of Leads Generated

You spend $1,300 and got 28 leads. Your CPL would be $1,300 / 28 = $46,42

Lead to Conversion Rate

Twentyeight leads, and nine customers was the result.

Lead to Conversion Rate = (Number of New Customers / Number of Leads) × 100

Your LCR would be (9 / 28) × 100 = 32,14%.

Conversion Cycle

Let’s assume the following days of all nine customers.

C	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
D	14	4	9	12	7	4	18	9	6

All days (D) summed up is 83. Your Conversion Cycle would be 83 / 28 = 2,9. So you can say it takes approximately 3 days that a lead becomes a customer.

That also concludes the Gather part. Now for the Nurture part, we want to follow-up with our newly generated leads. To find out the Conversion Rate as well as the Average Order Value.

Conversion Rate

Your desired action is the purchase. You have your 28 leads on the list. You follow-up with email campaigns. I’ve already stated that you got nine customers.

So the conversion rate for the purchase (hence the lead became a customer) is (9 / 28) × 100 = 32,14%.

Average Order Value

If your product price was $29,99 and was bought by all nine customers. Your AOV would we $29.99 of course. But, one customer also bought a complementary product (upsell) of $14,99.

Your AOV would be $284,9 / 9 = $31,65. Now, the Flourish Metrics

Churn Rate

The question is, should you track the Churn Rate based for all campaigns or in total? I’d say if possible do both. You should know where you customers come from. From which channel at least. Whether they came from Google, Facebook, Radio, whatsoever.

This gives you the power to calculate the Churn Rate for all channels. You’ll discover that some channels bring in higher quality customers than other. If you know that you can direct your investments to these. Otherwise you are just shooting darts on the dark side of the moon.

To answer the question. In my humble opinion track if possible the Churn Rate for this very campaign as well as overall for all customers. So you can compare them and find out what campaigns (at least channel) brings quality customers.

And remember, you must look at this number from the context of the Lifetime Value of your customers as well as the Customer Acquisition Cost.

From this campaign you got 9 customers after 18 days (the max days it took one lead to became a customer). Let’s say we track them for one quarter (3 months). After three months you only have 7 left.

Churn Rate = (Number of Customers at the Start of the Period – Number of Customers at the End of the Period) / Number of Customers at the Start of the Period × 100

Churn Rate = (9 – 7) / (9) × 100 = 22,23%. You lost around 22% of your customers in one quarter that came from this campaign.

For the Review and Referral Rate let’s say you got 3 reviews and one referral. Your Referral Rate would be (1 / 9) × 100 = 11,11% and a Review Rate of (3 / 9) × 100 = 33,33%.

Conclusion

To follow up on the question if these metrics should be tracked for both campaign and overall level.

Personally I encourage you to track all metrics for all campaigns. So all campaigns you run from now on should be tracked with these numbers. No deviation.

Yes, there may be certain campaigns were you’d say some numbers are irrelevant.

For example Cost per Lead or the Customer Acquisition Cost. And that’s okay. In the Gather stage, Nurture and all consecutive stages it isn’t necessary and wouldn’t make a lot of sense.

Otherwise track all metrics. Then you can also sum it up for all campaigns you ran during a specific time period. You then compare them to your overall metrics and decide what campaigns did bring you good leads and/or quality customers.

Track the Lifetime Value for all campaigns as well as for all combined.

The Lifetime Value (LTV)

The LTV is the health of your company. Acquiring a customer requires marketing, sales and support efforts. Over his lifetime some customers make repeat purchases, some may not. Add the revenue up and you have the lifetime value.

It’ll show you how much each one of your customers is worth. There will be campaigns that bring in customers with an extremely high LTV, while other campaigns do not.

This is why I have said you need to look at certain numbers within the context of the LTV.

Let’s take a look at this picture here to understand the idea behind it better:

The red triangle is the cost of acquiring a customer. The payback of this Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) takes some time. And then, you earn the fruits of the LTV later on. You should have an LTV to CAC ratio of at least 3:1, meaning the customer generates three times more revenue than it costs to acquire them. This gives you enough playground for your cost of attracting a new customer.

What does it mean for you?

It is absolutely okay to lose money when acquiring a customer if you have your LTV under control.

To calculate LTV, multiply Average Order Value (AOV) by Purchase Frequency (PF) and then multiply by Customer Lifespan (CL) (the average time a customer stays active with your business).

LTV = AOV × PF × CL

For example, if you have:

• AOV = $50 (average spent per order)
• PF = 4 (purchases per year)
• CL = 3 years (average customer lifespan)

your LTV would be 50 × 4 × 3 = $600. This means the average customer is worth $600 over their lifetime (3 years).

You know you can spend up to $600 to acquire a customer and you’d break-even. Of course, you wouldn’t want to spend so much but what about $100? You know in the first year you will earn $200. So the acquisition cost is covered.

Knowing this number gives you power to invest smartly.

Track the LTV for all channels individually and for all your customers summed up if you can. This gives insight into how much you can afford to attract a new customer in as specific channel and overall. For your competitors it may seem that you lose money while you know that your typical customer will spend $300 during his “lifetime” and hence the advertising efforts will pay off.

Mathematical forecasting

The best part is forecasting. If you run your numbers, you can calculate expected revenue.

If we take the previous example, you can calculate the leads and customers you can expect if you invest a certain amount of money. Sure, such projections should always be taken with a grain of salt.

Still, it gives you insights and can help you to answer the question where you should invest more. That’s not rocket-science, it may sometimes miss the mark, but that’s fine.

So, let’s say you want to invest another $500 in this campaign. How would our lead forecast look like?

Take the CPL of $46,42 and we can expect ($500 / $46,42) = 10,77 leads; so up to 10 leads can be expected.

Previously you had 28 leads from this campaign. Our Lead to Conversion Rate was 32,14%. So if you expect 10 leads at best from this campaign and 32,14% would convert you can expect a total of (10 × 32,41%) = 3,21 sales (customers).

If we use absolute numbers you can expect with an additional investment of $500 10 leads and hence 3 customers. Based on the AOV of $31,65 you forecasted income is (3 × $31,65) = $94,95.

(Here is a more comprehensive calculation.)

The Art of Being Different

The issue is that most business owners try to stand out by being louder. The reason why they do this is quite simple, because they copied their competitors approach and thus have to be louder or otherwise they’ll be ignored.

The truth is depending on your market your potential customers may have heard it all. The promises, the guarantees, the features you claim, the benefits, … everything.

There are four stages of your market. You can be the first one in the market and have no competitors, that’s easy. If you just have a few other competing businesses you don’t need to be creative. When potential prospects have heard it all, it can become hard to stand out. And if you operate in a crowded market – weight-loss for example – its terrible to advertise.

If you product is not legitimately unique you may have a hard time doing marketing in any stage of the market where other businesses offer the same product.

No competitors

You are probably the first in the market. Your prospects have never received any information about a product like yours before. This is, as you can think, easy.

You can just advertise your product with its benefits.

Couple of competitors

If you have some competitors find out what they’re claiming, their benefits, their offers and trump it. Of course, you need proof to back the claims up! If you can, trump their benefits and differentiate yourself.

Ask yourself

What is the unique or greatest benefit I can give to my customer at a superior level than my competitors?

Find the answer to this question and position yourself and your marketing around this.

They have heard it all

This can become a bit harder. Prospects have heard it all. The claims, the benefits your product offers, the guarantees, etc.

You need to change the way you promise your products benefits. You need to introduce a unique mechanism. Something that makes your product stand out. You can’t advertise a promise or just a plain benefit.

You need to shift the perspective of your prospects. Advertise the mechanism.

How can you do that?

Wrap it around an idea that changes the perspective of how your customers
see your product

You don’t need to change the product, yet if you can truly distinguish it, then go ahead. Otherwise you need to change the angle of how you advertise your product.

Now, I know this sounds a bit philosophical. Don’t worry. Itself its pretty simple. Simple to understand, but not simple to do.

Your job is to educate your potential customers about the REAL reason why past solutions didn’t work or bring them the result the wanted.

You achieve this by explaining that their knowledge about the problem is incomplete and they have been missing a crucial piece of information that has been holding them back.

P90X is a perfect example of how shifting the angle of an advertisement changes the way customers perceive a product. Instead of just saying, “This workout will help you lose weight and get ripped,” they introduced a concept – Muscle Confusion – which completely changed how people thought about fitness.

Most fitness programs at the time focused on straightforward workout routines with basic progressions. P90X didn’t just sell a workout program, it sold a new way of training that exposed a critical flaw in traditional workouts.

Their message was:

“The reason you’re not seeing results isn’t because you’re not working hard, it’s because your body has adapted! Traditional workouts fail because they don’t challenge your muscles in different ways, leading to plateaus. With P90X and Muscle Confusion, your body never adapts, so you keep burning fat and building muscle consistently.”

Why This Worked:

• Reframed the Problem: Instead of saying “You’re not working hard enough,” they said, “The workouts you’ve been doing are the problem.” This removed blame from the customer and gave them hope.
• Created a New Perspective: The idea of “Muscle Confusion” made customers feel like they had discovered something new, something revolutionary.
• Sold a Concept, Not Just a Product: Instead of just selling workouts, they sold a methodology, making P90X feel essential rather than just another fitness program.

How You Can Apply This to Your Product:

• Identify the existing belief your customers have. (Example: “Diets help you lose weight.”)
• Show why that belief is incomplete or flawed. (Example: “Diets fail because they slow your metabolism over time.”)
• Introduce a unique concept that shifts their perspective. (Example: “Our system focuses on metabolic flexibility so your body burns fat efficiently, no matter what you eat.”)

This is how you make your product stand out.

By teaching customers something new that makes them see old solutions as inadequate and your product as the missing piece. And “unfortunately” you absolutely MUST do it nowdays.

Otherwise they’ll will just toss your ad away and say “Yep, I have heard that before.”

Crowded market

In this stage your competitors start to copy your mechanisms. Your offers, promises, benefits, claims, whatsoever.

Your job is to come up with a NEW mechanism that again shifts the perspective of your prospects.

Congrats! That’s it for now.

I sincerely hope that you’ve found some ideas that will help you on your marketing journey. And that this approach lifted the curtains of marketing that sometimes seems so claudy.

If you know someone who needs to know this, then please share it. The less people purchase overpriced courses the better.

A personal anecdote, – if you allow me -, stop consuming information if you can’t put it into action immediately. All the books, the courses, the podcasts, hurt you more than you may think. I especially mean all those high-priced courses that target young entrepreneurs, business owners and marketers.

The more you know the more you get stuck, at least that is what I have found out over the years.

Stick with the fundamentals and build upon them.

If you want to enhance your skills, I recommend you to read the following books (order doesn’t matter)

Scientific Advertising, Ogily on Advertising, Reality in Advertising, Breakthrough Advertising and My First Sixty Years in Advertising

If you read these books, you’ll know more about direct response advertising and copywriting than most CMOs out there.

To your success,
Dominik