If you’re like most people, you believe in spending money to make money in business – which is not a bad strategy. However, history attests to the fact that viable zero cost alternative ways exist to make money, if one would only learn to use them. In these times when advertising funds are harder to find, if you want to keep your profits up, you need to add “Marketing Without Advertising (MWA)” to your business promotion arsenal. Read on to learn more in this experience based article.
TIP: If you already practice MWA, I ask that you forgive me for being presumptuous. But then again, what exactly is it you do, that you believe qualifies to be called “Marketing Without Advertising”?
In the rest of this article I offer introductory insights, to guide any persons interesting in using MWA to promote products and services they offer.
First let me say I make no claims to knowing it all. I do not wish to create the impression that I have superior knowledge or monopoly of it.
However, my interactions both on and off the web with lots of persons engaged in business marketing at various levels, have consistently revealed to me that most of them lack a sound understanding.
I mean they do NOT know how to SUCCESSFULLY (and for the long term) promote the solutions they offer, to those who need it, without coming across as being too “pushy”.
For me, Marketing Without Advertising means: communicating the fact that a solution you offer can help your target audience in a manner that makes the latter feel you can help them solve a problem they wish to be rid off, and NOT that you’re just trying to get money off them.
Recall the “pushy salespersons” strategy in which sales personnel and entrepreneurs go after potential buyers they identify with die hard determination?
Yes – the one that often involves near literal arm twisting of the latter into buying-submission?
Well, none of that happens during the process of Marketing Without Advertising. So if you do THAT, you are definitely NOT practicing MWA!
In MWA…instead of a push mentality, a pull philosophy is adopted by the intending sales person/marketer. Rather than aim to pressure prospects to buy, emphasis is placed on providing valuable information and education in a no-strings-attached manner that inspires trust and confidence.
At that point the prospect tends to take ownership of the process and begins to push to get more specific details from the intending seller. By then the relationship tends to be one in which the seller is viewed as an expert authority with the reliable competence to provide a solution that addresses the buyer’s needs.
One of the most powerful tools for practicing MWA, based on my personal experiences, is information publishing (done via writing, where possible in combination with public speaking).
But I LOVE writing more because it allows you to leverage the potentially unlimited reach of the Internet.
Through that channel you can get your message considered by a global audience without being limited by distance.
This is especially important when you consider how public speaking requires that you get invited by an audience in a location that you can reach. Not all audiences and locations will be easily reachable in that manner.
But with writing, a variety of possibilities become available to you. All of them at more or less zero cost, when you choose to use the web.
You can write articles, case studies, white papers, eBooks, paperback/print books, magazines etc. The web offers myriad low to zero cost platforms you can use to achieve your marketing purpose.
However it takes some doing, and even more know-how to succeed with this approach.
Especially where it concerns knowing what to write, how to write it, to whom you will write it and when/where you will write it.
Believe it or not, the answers to each of the foregoing will often differ over time, and depending on what you’re trying to sell.
This is why you need to LEARN how to succeed at Marketing Without Advertising.
You need to read the works of those who have used it successfully, and who are willing to share their wisdom about how to get it right.
One good example is THIS writer – as are MANY of those from whose works I have learned over the past decade or so e.g. Michel Fortin, Burt Dubin, Dan Kennedy.
A proven way to establish yourself as an expert authority in the market you serve, so as to sell more, is to become a formally published author in your area of expertise.
Therefore if you really want to excel at MWA, you need to make getting published in as many ways as possible a major priority.
You need to get your original ideas published for sale to a global audience in both print (i.e. paperback/physical) as well as digital form
Today, it’s many times easier than it used to be. PC and Internet Technology have made it so much easier.
You can now ignore the brick and mortar publishers, with their prohibitive fees, and adopt instead the Print On Demand Publishing (POD) service provided by web based companies like www.lulu.com – where I’ve done what I recommend you do, since 2005.
A web based POD publishing company will typically be a Zero Cost publishing platform with global marketing reach, and multiple book contents delivery formats e.g. PDF, Kindle, and Print/paperback etc.
You pay nothing to get published in print or eBook format with them. They only make money when you do – and it’s your buyer that pays – NOT you!
Nothing beats marketing that yields income in form of monthly royalty payments!
In other words, even as you use your published work to command high profile marketplace attention from your target market, this system enables you earn income from sales of the books online.
I propose you aim to hit the ground running in January 2017, with www.yourname.com (?) and the rest of a custom Web Marketing System (WMS) I will build for you.
Your WMS will be a flagship multifaceted online presence branded to attract pre-qualified prospects you will offer high profile products and services to.
Your wealth of knowledge, insights, and experience can be monetized to offer a GUIDE BOOK of some sort for persons looking for solutions like those you offer.
Your target audience comprises people who currently seek RELIABLE providers of such solutions. They complain about wasting time with others they often end up discovering are not competent, or worse – are fraudulent.
Chances are however good that those who really need your help may not be able to tell you can “save them” just by seeing you/your photo, your flyer or your office!
If only they knew you were different. If only someone they trusted could tell them that YOU are not like the others – which you always deliver what you promise.
Sigh…if only they knew.
But they often will NOT know….that your knowledge and expertise is valuable and reliable.
However, once they trust you, those same people previously unwilling to trust, will gladly pay to have access to you.
I can help you create a platform via the web to make that happen for you on a regular basis. To the extent that total strangers will feel comfortable trusting you at first “contact”.
I mean complete strangers trust you enough to CONFIDENTLY send you money or hire you – like they have done with me for YEARS.
But they can discover that truth from progressive exposure to your MWA messages over time.
What makes this strategy great is that the written word can be accessed in various ways both on and off the web – especially online where most people today go to look for information and education.
Yep. Google.com and other search engines.
So, you just need to get your MWA messages found via those online search platforms, and you’ll be well on your way.
Of course, that will not be all.
Smart use of social media platforms, newsletter marketing, blog based publishing and other techniques used in intelligent combination is what will really deliver optimal marketing reach and impact that you need to make.
It’s NOT easy to do, but it can be done. I have been doing it with increasing success for years now, and I help clients do the same – using a custom WMS.
Those who are willing to do the hard work involved get the promised results.
If you are willing to do the same, click here to contact me.
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