111. Why you need to read the 1-page marketing plan
A succinct book that will get you to focus on the important stuff.
What is often the case with a lot of self-help and business books is that the author includes a lot of fluff, unnecessary examples, or straight-up bad advice.
Allan Dib does the opposite.
Providing a brilliant outline of how to approach all aspects of marketing, he gives a very practical strategy for business progression.
Complex concepts were broken down into digestible text and analogies.
It was one of my favourite marketing books I’ve read in recent years.
As a result, I went through my notes on the book and thought I’d share my favourite takeaways.
Here they are:
Strategy without tactics leads to paralysis by analysis.
Tactics without strategy lead to the “bright shiny object syndrome.
Quality and great service are expectations; they are just part of good business practice—not something unique. People only find out about your quality and great service after they’ve bought. A good USP is designed to attract prospects before they’ve made a purchasing decision.
We want to get into the mind of our prospect. What do they really want? It’s rarely the thing you are selling; it’s usually the result of the thing you are selling. The difference may seem subtle, but it’s huge.
A better option than discounting is to increase the value of your offering. Bundling in bonuses, adding services, and customising the solution can all be of genuine value to your customer but can cost you very little to do.
Purchasing is done with emotions and justified with logic after the fact.
The five major motivators of human behaviour, especially buying behaviour, are Fear, Love, Greed, Guilt, and Pride.
Always choose clarity over cleverness.
Hire experts that specialise in whatever media you decide is right for your campaign—they’re worth their weight in gold. Don’t try to do it yourself, especially when it comes to the most expensive part of your marketing process. What you don’t know WILL hurt you.
Lifetime value and customer acquisition cost are two of the key numbers you need to know to measure marketing effectiveness.
My preference, as much as possible, is to build and own my own marketing assets, such as websites, blogs, email lists and so on. I then use social media simply as a way to drive traffic to these marketing assets. This way, my time and effort go into renovating my own “house” rather than that of a landlord who can kick me out at any time.
Have an unlimited budget for marketing that works.
When you educate and teach, you are seen as an expert and an authority. You’re no longer questioned; instead, you are obeyed and seen to have a personal, genuine, helpful interest in other people.
Sell Them What They Want but Give Them What They Need.
A common misconception is that the innovation has to be in the actual product or service itself.
Our goal is to eliminate the biggest bottleneck from your business—YOU.
A customer won on price will be lost on price.
A great way of framing an upsell is to say, “Most customers who bought X also bought Y.”
Entrepreneurs work in the results economy, whereas most other people work in the time and effort economy.