Reaching The People Who Get It

(This is a guest post from Conrad Hees who writes about self-marketing, among other things, at ConradHees.com. He realized that I was moving across the Atlantic and that might make me a little busy, so he very nicely offered to pitch in. Not a bad little self-marketing effort, come to think of it.)

As marketers, our main job is to connect in an effective way with clients/customers who are in need of our product or service, and elicit a desired result from them. This can sometimes be difficult, and other times it is easier. But one surefire way to fail at marketing is to chase after and/or try to convert people who just don’t get it.

Many of us feel like if we are passionate enough about our product or service and a good enough salesperson, we will be able to convert potential customers who really need what we have to offer, but just don’t realize it themselves yet. While you may sometimes be able to convert an ill-informed or ill-motivated potential customer, most of the time you can’t, and it will take too much time and effort to do so, making it an effort in futility.

In this article, I will illustrate exactly why you cannot waste your time trying to market to those who just don’t get it.

Case in point:

I have recently joined a social network on Ning, a site that allows people to create their own social networks centered around a topic, such as blogging or Shania Twain fans or Republicans who live in Kentucky or whatever.

The name of the network that I am a part of is called the 20 Something Bloggers, and it has over 3.000 members. I would estimate that the composition of the people on the site is made up of about 75% diary bloggers who write on a free service such as Blogger.com, another 15% who have diary blogs on their own self-hosted site, and the remaining 10% is made up of bloggers who write about focused topics on either their own site or a free one.

My purpose in joining this community is to try to reach the 100-300 (and growing) bloggers who write well about a focused topic on a free Blogger or Wordpress.com blog, and who are interested in having me setup a self-hosted Wordpress blog for them (for a commission of course). I hope to create a nice little side income with this approach.

My problem with accomplishing this is that I did not anticipate that many of my target customers just don’t get it.

Having your own self-hosted blog is much more powerful than blogging on a free blogging service, simply because people take you much more seriously and that you own your own blog, among other reasons.

I know the powerful benefits of owning your own self-hosted blog, and I assumed that many of the bloggers on this network would be very interested in making the switch to self-hosting, but perhaps were just procrastinating because of technical reasons or what-have-you. It became apparent to me very quickly that most of these bloggers, even if they were interested in getting self-hosted, were holding back from taking the plunge due to several factors:

1) They do not realize the power of self-hosting over ‘free-blogging’, and even when it is explained in great detail to them, they are unreceptive and resistant to the concept of actually owning their own blog, rather than spending 5-10 hours per week or more blogging for a site which they do not own.

2) They do not realize exactly how much time, effort, and energy they are wasting blogging for a free service. They do not see that people never take a ‘free’ blogger quite as seriously as a self-hosted blogger.

(Worse, many actually claim that they cannot afford $7-$10 per month to get a self-hosted blog, which they spend hours on each day, yet will spend $7 on a sandwich without blinking an eye.)

3) They simply are not motivated to advance their careers or put more money in their pocket like others are. Even if they are ‘authority blogging’, they do not want to get self-hosted because they just don’t care about how they are being perceived. They write for themselves.

My point in all this is that I quickly realized that these people are not my target market — not because they don’t need what I have to offer, but rather because they just don’t get it.

And it’s useless to try to reach and convert people who don’t get it.

Permission Marketing and Converting the Non-Believers

Don’t bother trying to convert those who don’t get it. Why not, you ask?

1. Because if they haven’t gotten it by now, there is probably a very good reason why.

2. The ones who don’t get it are, more often than not, unwilling to see a different way of thinking. They don’t want to see your point of view or hear your pitch, even if you really are trying to help them.

3. These people take literally 5-10X the amount of normal effort that you usually put out to get a sale. It’s not worth it.

4. You will drive yourself absolutely crazy trying to prove your point to a person who doesn’t want to hear it, or worse, will not admit you are right or have what they need, even if they finally do ‘get it’.

Besides, there are too many people out there who do get it. Although it may not seem like it, for every person out there who needs what you are marketing but doesn’t know it or get it, there is someone who totally gets it and is ready and waiting for you to sell it to them.

Permission marketing is a term coined by Seth Godin (who else?) that is used to describe the new wave of marketing that goes against the grain of the old, throw-it-against-the-wall-and-see-if-it-sticks way of marketing to the masses.

Permission marketing is when you market and pursue people who actually want what you are selling to them. It is when you have permission by the person to sell to them, and they welcome your marketing.

TV advertising is old-fashioned, where you show an ad to 5 million people, and 4.9 million do not want what you are selling, and don’t want to see your ad.

Pay-Per-Click advertising is permission marketing because you are putting your ad in front of people who want to see it. They are looking for what you have to sell, and they don’t mind being sold to.

These are the type of customers we are looking for. People who don’t need a lot of chasing after or convincing. People who f***ing get it. (Editor’s Note: He’s a guest poster and his mom is probably reading this, so we left the little stars in. Hi, Conrad’s Mom!!)

Final Thoughts on Marketing to Those Who Get It

In our businesses, we need clients and customers who get it. The type of people who see exactly what we are trying to do for them, who see the value in our services and products, and who understand that a true, valuable professional who can add real value to their lives is going to cost more than $18/hour.

Most importantly, we need people who understand what an investment is. Who will spend $500 now because they know it will make them $25,000 down the line.

We can find these types of customers who really get it by doing a few simple things:

- Going to the places where people who get it may be meeting and hanging out

- Making a decision very shortly about whether they get it or don’t get it so as to avoid wasting time as much as possible

- Seeking out customers who have a history of trying new things and being intelligent, and also those who understand an investment.

- Cutting the fat from our list of leads to make contact with. Anyone who has not been sold after the first several contacts may just be a tough shell to crack, they just might not get it. If you suspect they are the latter, axe them from your list.

- Creating enough of a reputation for ourselves and our businesses that the people who ‘get it’ simply come to us, all by themselves. This, of course, is the hardest and longest way to get good customers, and yet the easiest and best way once you reach a certain level. Naomi knows all about this.

So, now that I’ve brought it up, are you marketing to people who don’t get it? It’s a question we all should ask ourselves periodically, or we run the risk of not getting ‘it’ either.

The money, that is. :)

By Naomi Dunford