If you don’t want to read it, you can watch this video.
I got this email asking me why I didn’t just rely on word of mouth marketing since that’s what the big companies do. I sat there stunned. I really think that one of the reasons that many businesses are not very successful is fallacies and misconceptions. Let’s break this down.
Word of mouth marketing, stealth content marketing and authority marketing are all forms of marketing you can use. You can use one of these or all of these to promote your business. I’m going to break down the differences.
Let’s say you are a small company and you don’t have any money. You have to depend on word of mouth marketing because you don’t have any money. That’s how it is going down. I think people misperceive what they’re doing.
Let’s say you own a sugar shack and you sell Jimmy’s Sugar. You open up your business with $500. You know your sugar is good, but you don’t have any advertising budget. So, you tell Big Mama. She tells Karl and Karl tells Julie. That’s your word of mouth marketing.
Word of mouth marketing typically has some tiers. If I go to a restaurant and if I wanted to recommend an app to someone I could say, “This is app is really good, you should get it.” That’s a nod in the right direction. They may or may not get it. But if I grab my phone and show them what I think they should do and get excited about it and they download it, that’s effective word of mouth marketing. There’s a big, big difference.
I’ve done that to people. People have done that to me. Not only do they tell you about the app, they tell you why you are stupid not to get that app.
You have people out there all day saying you should try XYZ. Unless there is some context with that word of mouth marketing, something may happen or it may not. It may happen down the road, possibly. If there is a strong context, then that person is going to take a stronger action.
Let’s go to what I do, stealth content marketing. This is something I’ve done since 2009. I embed Easter eggs and inflammatory statements throughout my videos because I want to know how many people make it to that point. I may do this every ten minutes or so in the video. I’ll see their reaction in the comments. A good way to get someone to remark in the comments is to tell them “not to put it in the comments.” Invariably some people will do it. It’s really crazy.
I’ll give you a good example of something else I do that’s been working well, instead of just saying, hey, I’ve got some stuff below the video, I will show a message instructing them to Click Show More under the video. You have to show people how to find it or they won’t find it. It sounds condescending, but after seven years doing this, I learned that fact.
If you’re just going to rely on word of mouth marketing, it works, but word of mouth marketing with strong content works better. Stealth content marketing works way better. I piss people off on purpose. The thumbs up and thumbs down does not impact your rank. It’s the view time that matters for your ranking.
You can hire a bunch of people to come in and give you a “thumbs up” on your video. That’s the reason YouTube took it out of the algorithm for determining the video’s rank. They know people would play that angle. But, it’s hard to “game” view time. They actually check view time. That is the strongest indicator of a channel’s strength.
When I make a video for one person, it resonates very well, because it’s not talking to just everyone. You know if you go to the bar and you try to talk to 20 different women and all the women see that you’re doing that, they immediately lose interest. They think, “I’m not special.” It’s the same thing online.
Many people start a business on fallacies. If you ask business owners who is the biggest spending block in the country, many don’t know. Now that I’ve thrown that question on the table, I’ll answer it. It’s white women from the age of 14 to 35 years old. The second largest demographic for spending is women. That is who is spending the money. If you start a business and you don’t know these types of facts, you’re operating at a disadvantage. All you have to do is go to the US Census.gov and the information is there.
When you have the demographic numbers, this is where stealth marketing comes in. I have a confession. This channel is for men. A lot of women watch too. There is a reason this channel is for men. There aren’t a great number of channels that cater to men, because they are catering to other people because they think the money is there.
I had to create an experience. You have to know who you are selling to and what they’re buying. You have to know what’s in their mind and heart. I know a lot of dudes want to have financial freedom and choice in their life. That’s really, really big. If you’re a YouTuber, you really need to live in your analytics.
I review my analytics every day. This information is free. Your channel may not grow as large when you have a very specific niche, but your money will grow large because you’re talking to who you need to be talking to. The issues I talk about on this channel are money, building a business, and personal issues you deal with as an entrepreneur, such as your family and romantic relationships. If you’re an entrepreneur, you’re going to go through this stuff.
Knowing what my audience is experiencing gives me great power putting together my shows and products. I don’t put out anything now without testing it. That does drive people a little crazy. I fail like 75% of the time. All of this stuff dovetails into your marketing. When you do your marketing, you have to know how it will impact every part of your business.
Some people put together marketing campaigns that are wildly successful, but their infrastructure can’t handle all the new business. There are literally businesses that have gone out of business, because they got too much business too quickly and their infrastructure wasn’t ready.
If you’re going to be in the world of word of mouth marketing you have to ask yourself some questions. Number 1 – who is your customer? This type of marketing is cheap and it works.
Let’s jump into authority marketing. It’s a whole different beast. This is when someone like Sean Combs or P Diddy can go to a brand and say, “I’m going to throw a party for your brand. How much will you give me?” Then the customer gives them money. They can make deals without making money because they have so much authority.
You can get authority if you work for it. There are many channels right now that are ripe for monetization because they have authority. But, they don’t know how to do it. They worry about offending people when they ask for money. It takes six months to two years to build authority if you just keep working at it and putting out content.
While word of mouth marketing is cheap, it can take a while. What you need is strong word of mouth marketing, content marketing and authority marketing. That’s what will bring you the most money.
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