People have all different ways of looking at marketing. Some see it as a game of strategy, others see it as a metaphor for life, and Jeff Boss sees it as another mission. For 13 years he served as a Navy SEAL, during which time he had 8 combat deployments. Now as a business consultant, he uses the tactics he learned as a SEAL to help organizations become more adaptable.
People have all different ways of looking at marketing. Some see it as a game of strategy, others see it as a metaphor for life, and Jeff Boss sees it as another mission. For 13 years he served as a Navy SEAL, during which time he had 8 combat deployments. Now as a business consultant, he uses the tactics he learned as a SEAL to help organizations become more adaptable.
Be surprising
This is why when he relates marketing strategies, it sounds more like a military playbook than new ways to appeal to customers. For instance, he related that the book Made to Stick references Israeli research who “assembled roughly 200 award-winning ads and found that the majority of the ads (89 percent) could be categorized into six templates. The interesting part was that most of these templates related to the phenomenon of unexpectedness.”
People like surprises, it tickles their sense of humor and wonder simultaneously and if you’re lucky, it gives them incentive to investigate your product more closely. Even hackneyed cliches can be spiced up with a twist. For instance what if “butterflies in my stomach” was changed to “a torrential thunderstorm of stomach-dwelling butterflies”? People are familiar with the cliche but their interest is piqued with the new imagery.
Start an insurgency
No, Boss isn’t suggesting you start your own terrorist organization, but he is suggesting you do some undercover work. How are you supposed to know what the competition is up to if you never associate with them? “Embed yourself amongst the populace by going to conferences or tradeshows,” Boss suggested. “These target-rich environments offer unadulterated access to industry experts, leaders, insiders and—most importantly—press.”
Don’t be afraid of trial and error
You won’t make the right decision the first time every time. Don’t be afraid to take a step back and say, “This isn’t working. Let’s scrap it and start something new.” That’s why Boss suggested trying a number of tools from various companies before you make your final decision on which to invest in. GetResponse is an email marketing tool which “offers not just email-marketing campaigns, but also analytics, landing-page creation, and every sort of form builder you can imagine,” according to Boss.
Another option is Click to Call Market, a service which says, “We know your time is valuable, and the last thing you want to do is spend time trying to reach your leads. . . . You also only pay for quality inbound sales calls.” It might be a relief to delegate some of the marketing burden to an experienced set of professionals who can take care of a few tasks for you.
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Source: entrepreneur.com/article/238551
