Sell Anything: Master Three Simple Marketing Elements
If you’re struggling to put together an ad that drives sales, don’t worry, I know exactly how you feel.
I’ve tried everything from the marketing “gurus” on YouTube to those sketchy Instagram Reels where you comment “sales” to receive a half-baked marketing guide.
Looking back I wasn’t quite sure what I was expecting. Maybe some sort of magic scroll of arcane knowledge that would suddenly impart raw truth straight into my brain.
Much like Neo from The Matrix when they upload all the combat skills instantly into his mind.
Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. However, the truth is much simpler than discovering some clandestine knowledge.
Before you understand what makes a winning ad, you need to understand what not to do and how we ended up in a world of poor advertising.
If You’re Still Selling On Price, I’ve Got News For You
You’ve been led to believe all sorts of ineffective marketing techniques throughout your life.
I’m sure you’ve seen the Coca-Cola commercials with the polar bear around Christmas time.
Why they ran this commercial is a mystery, but when you have the advertising budget of Coca-Cola, anything is possible in the name of “brand awareness.”
The commercial leads you to believe that some fancy CGI and a bear drinking a carbonated beverage will help sell more Coke. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never once seen a can of Diet Coke and thought,
“Oh yeah, the Christmas bears! I gotta buy one.”
This is one example in a sea of many famous brands using questionable marketing methods. Because of their massive size, they can throw just about anything at the wall and it will stick.
They have endless budgets, but most businesses do not.
These megabrands have skewed the ability to see what elements truly make an ad that increases sales and have trapped us in a matrix of horrible marketing strategies.
“The ad needs to have someone famous in it.”
“There needs to be a woman in the ad for sex appeal.”
“There needs to be a catchy jingle.”
And, God forbid,
“The product needs to be cheap!”
While the factors above play an important role in ads, they are decorative elements on top of a much larger foundation.
Before you worry about jingles and celebrities you need to focus on the foundation.
So what will it be, Neo, will you take the blue pill or the red pill?
Take the blue pill and you go back to selling on being the cheapest, and never make a dime.
However, if you choose the red pill I will teach you the three core elements of marketing that you can apply anywhere and achieve massive results.
The Red Pill Of Marketing
Get your notepad ready, we’re about to dive in. Here are the three components of a successful marketing campaign.
Element 1: Who are you talking to? Who is your target audience?
Probably the most important of the three elements is who you are targeting with your ad. It doesn’t matter what your product or service is, there’s a certain audience that it’s geared towards and it’s up to you to find it.
Tailoring your message towards these people is necessary because it is borderline impossible to come up with a message that speaks and applies to everyone.
Keep in mind we are following general rules here, and ignoring the exceptions.
A great example of this would be car mechanic tools. I’m not sure what percentage of technicians are men, but I’m sure it’s easily in the 90% range. Thus, our message needs to speak to men. Simple right?
“But what about the female technicians?”
They make up an extremely small percentage of your target audience, so it doesn’t make sense to fit your ad to their interests.
If they want to buy your tools, they still can, you aren’t stopping them.
It’s just you won’t be changing your look and feel to fit them. It’s the same way you wouldn’t gear a nail salon advertisement to men, despite it “being 2024” as the kids say these days.
Element 2: What are you saying? What is the message?
Your message, what your ad is selling, needs to be powerful, clear, persuasive, compelling, intriguing, and every other positive adjective in the dictionary.
It’s a competitive world out there, your ad needs to cut through the clutter.
It cannot be boring, and it cannot be what everyone else is saying.
…And in case you missed it, the message better not be “I am the cheapest!”
Element 3: How are you reaching these people?
Once you have the first two elements nailed down, it’s time to think about how you’ll get the message out there.
Fortunately for you, there’s good news.
No, not that good news, but good news related to reaching your target audience.
Figuring out the “how” used to be difficult and expensive. In the past, you had to buy a list of addresses, and physically mail your ad to the prospects.
The good news is that social media has made this step fairly easy.
With the use of Meta or Google ads, you can target anyone you wish!
Are they local people? What age are they? Male? Female? What are their interests?
It’s truly a remarkable ability.
The great thing about Meta/Google ads is you can test multiple audiences at the same time, and fine-tune your ad on the fly as results come in.
More leads with headline A over headline B? Run with headline A and try a new headline B and see if it outperforms headline A.
Rinse and repeat. This is the “how” to running an ad that generates more sales.
Welcome To The Real World, Neo
Now that you’ve been given the core elements of a successful marketing campaign it’s time to put it into action.
Like the Planeteers from Captain Planet (I can’t believe I’m making that Boomer reference) you can combine a clear target audience, a powerful message, and a strategic method of outreach into a marketing campaign that cuts through the noise and achieves sales.
So experiment, track your results, and refine your approach as you go.
Sticking to these three principles will put you leagues ahead of most other marketers, and give you the proper layup to the massive results that will make you more successful.
Get in touch if you want to learn how we’d apply these marketing elements to your business!
