“Shock and Awe Marketing” is an approach to making a huge impact on a small number of high potential clients.

It works on the principle that in a competitive market you're much better off making a huge impact on one prospect than spreading your efforts across 10 and having a minor impact with each one.

I find this is especially true for small and solo businesses. We may not have the resources to challenge big competitors on all fronts. But by focusing our efforts on making a big splash with a small number of potential clients we can come out on top easily enough times to have a thriving business.

Using “shock and awe” techniques you can make that big impact and ensure you're in pole position to win those high potential clients.

In this week's 5 Minute Marketing Tip video I share details on how to use shock and awe marketing and 5 of the most profitable situations to use it in.
 

Video Transcript

Hi, it's Ian here. Welcome to another five minute marketing tip. In this week's tip, I'm going to talk about the shock and awe technique for marketing, and in particular five situations where you can use shock and awe particularly well. I'll see you after the break.

Hi, welcome back. The shock and awe technique is a method for making a huge impact on a very small number of targeted, ideal clients. I first heard about it I think in a Dan Kennedy book where he talked about how whenever he was be contacted by someone who wanted a sales meeting with him to discuss potentially working together, then rather than just him rocking up to the sales meeting and not being certain what that potential client's perception of him was before the meeting. They may know he's a world famous author and is a real expert in various things, on the other hand they might just have been given his name or found him randomly, so what he did instead, he always used to send out a “shock and awe pack”, which is kind of a big cardboard box filled with a bunch of his books, CDs, audios, reports, etc..

So the prospect always got that before the meeting. If they opened it, and they looked at that, even if they skimmed through the books, it really did create shock and awe, where all of the sudden if they didn't know him before, they realized he really knew his stuff, he was a leading expert in the field, so it created an entirely different perception in that sales meeting. People were already coming to the meeting thinking this is a guy I want to work with.

That's the first use of the shock and awe meeting. It's in to prepare for sales meetings. The second use of shock and awe that I particularly like to use is for referrals. It's great to get a referral. Someone you know will recommend you to someone else, and they'll pass your name on et cetera. Maybe they'll contact you and say, “Hey, I recommended you to so and so, you should get in touch.” It's great that you're being recommended to someone else. The problem is how you habdle it from there. The minute you then follow up with someone and say, “Hey, so and so said they recommended me to you. So and so said that you may be a good person for me to speak to.” The minute you get in touch and say that on the phone or over email, maybe we should get together and talk about how we can work together, if the person at the other end of the phone or email is anything like me or most people, there's a horrible feeling they get in the pit of their stomach.

80% of the time, they're not ready to buy anything, so they're thinking, the last thing I want is a sales meeting but I don't want to be impolite. Even if they are looking for something, all of a sudden it puts you in the role of a sales person. Instead of being a really trusted friend and ally that someone's introduced, if you have to go knocking on their door to get that meeting, all of the sudden, it's changed the dynamic of the relationship.

For referrals, you can use shock and awe again because what you do is you send your shock and awe pack. That could be any books you've written, any reports you've written. If you’ve got a lead magnet, print it out and send it. Put some of your stuff on a CD, on audio. Collect together some videos, put those on DVD, et cetera. You're always better sending these shock and awe things through the post. You're using a different medium. Everybody uses email. Oversea, I like email, because I wrote a book on email marketing, but you want to break that frame. You want to do something different than everyone else. Send it through the post for example.

Or you could send them a bunch of videos rather than just text emails. That will create a whole different impression, instead of you contacting them saying, “Hey, would you like to get together to talk about how I can help you?” You could come back to them and say, “So and so said they recommended me to you, thought you might find this useful.” Send them your books, send them your audio, send them your video. All of the sudden, you're:

A. Doing something good for them rather than asking them for a sales meeting.
B. Impressing the heck out of them if you're material is really good.

It changes the dynamic and really sets you up for a great referral.

The third use of shock and awe is something called the overboarding technique. This technique was introduced to me, created by James Welch of Sales Coach World. I'll put a link to where James describes the overboarding technique himself just below the video. Basically it's the use of shock and awe type techniques after you've had a sales meeting.

Let's say you have a sales meeting with someone who turns out could really be a brilliant client for you, could be worth an absolute fortune for example. But it's quite competitive, there are other people in there. What you do is you go overboard to win the sale. Use the shock and awe techniques to follow up after the sales meeting and really impress the heck out of them, so that you're the person they focus on, and your the person who wins the sale.

The fourth time I might use the shock and awe techniques is with new clients. With new clients, as you know, there's always a danger of people getting buyers remorse. They paid a bunch of money to you, now they think, “really, have I made the right decision?” You want to make a really great impression. The simple thing I do with new members of Momentum Club, my membership program is I create a personalized video, and send that to them via email. I can pretty much guarantee they've never ever before had a personalized video welcoming them to a product or a program, showing them how to get the most from it from anyone else. No one does it but me, unless they're watching this video. Again it's the shock and awe technique.

If it's higher priced program, or whatever, you could maybe send them something through the post, send them a whole bunch of DVDs with your material, whatever it might be. Just think of some way of creating a really great first impression with new clients or customers.

The final one you can look at is unexpected gifts for existing customers or clients. One of the things we overlook time and time again is doing great things for existing customers. We often take them for granted, but we need to make sure they stay great customers for ever. On the anniversary of when they became a customer or client, send them some kind of gift. Again, I always prefer to send gifts out of your book, your CD, stuff like that, examples of your work. You're not only going to create a good impression because you sent them something nice, but also you're going to continue to impress them about how much you know, and how capable you are and how great it is to work with you.

You can send them some chocolate through the post as well. That's going to do no harm. But always try to think of things, your own intellectual property you can send them.

Again, the more you can send through the post, the more you can send via video, change the mode of your communication from the normal email or phone call or just looking into a website. Do something different. Make a great impression. Use the shock and awe technique. It'll really pay off. See you again soon.