The Scientific Strategic Messaging Formula™

Believe it or not the process of creating an effective strategic marketing program is actually scientific.  You’ve been taught to believe that marketing is an art and that you need a team of creative people to invent funny, quirky, entertaining, or any other type of creative content to use in your advertising and marketing but this is simply not the case. 

Years ago, there was a marketing acronym used called AIDA, A-I-D-A.  It stood for Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action.  In Rich Harshaw’s book called, “Monopolize Your Marketplace” Rich updated this formula and called it the “Marketing Equation”.  Both of these systems worked well for years and still do.  However, in today’s internet age with so much information being disseminated online and with incredible software tools available to us, along with our own testing in the Strategic Marketing Consultants Network, we have refined this system even further.

We call this scientific method for creating comprehensive marketing systems the Strategic Messaging Formula™ and we use it exclusively within the Strategic Marketing Consultants Network to generate industry-leading results for all of our customers, no matter their industry. 

Ultimately, the goal of the Scientific Strategic Messaging Formula™ is to cause your customers and prospects to draw this important conclusion that you have heard several times already: “I would have to be completely CRAZY to work with anyone but you no matter the price.”

Don’t you want your customers and prospects thinking that way?  Of course, you do!  So let me show you how this works. 

The Scientific Strategic Messaging Formula™ has five components. 

Let me introduce them to you really quick.  First is Capture.  This means that you must first capture your target market’s attention.  It’s pretty obvious I know, but it’s not as easy to pull off as people think.  Furthermore, it’s done wrong more often than it is done right.  You’ll learn how and why in a minute. 

The second component is Connect.  This means that once you have captured your prospects attention, you must connect with them on an emotional level.  You have to hold onto their attention by connecting on a hot button that is important or relevant to them.  You have to make them feel like important and relevant information is going to be delivered to them.  Information that will help them make the best decision possible.  In short you will be helping to facilitate the decision-making process. 

The third component is Educate.  Now that you connected with your prospect on an emotional level you must give them enough quality information to make them feel like they can make an informed decision about how to solve their problem or gain a needed benefit.  Again, you do this by giving your prospect enough quality information to address their emotional need.  Remember, the component is called educate.  So you are educating them.  This step is ultra-critical, and it turns the sale from an emotional sale to a logical one.

The fourth component is Incentivize.  In this step you have to give your prospect an incentive to take the next step in the buying process.  This is often accomplished by giving your prospect an offer to get a free marketing tool of some sort, like a special report, a video, a series of videos, an audio program, or anything like that.  However, you don’t always have to give away a marketing tool.  Often you can give them a coupon, an exclusive discount, a special limited opportunity, or any other low risk or high value offer.  Whatever it is, just remember you are incentivizing your prospect.  You are simply getting them to take the next step in the buying process. 

The fifth component is Offers.  Once you feed your prospects with the right information, it’s time to provide them with multiple offers.  Did you know offers are a great way to turn an engaged audience into customers?  No matter how good your marketing efforts are, the success or failure of your business depends on the product offer.  It’s an effective approach to motivate your customers to buy from you and maximize the response rate.  A good product offer must have the following features:

• It should address the pain points of the customers
• Convinces your prospects that your products or services can solve their problems
• It must be simple and relatable to your prospect’s life

Perfecting a product offer can take a long time but once done, it’s an easy way to make the most of your existing marketing channels.

The sixth and final component is Automate.  This simply means that now that your prospects are connected with you in the marketing system, you must create content to automate the follow-up process. Companies and individuals are notoriously bad about following-up.  Fortunately, software is available today to assist in this process.  Even then the software will not give you the best bang for your buck if you don’t properly craft your message in follow-up sequence. 

I’m going to show you exactly how to accomplish this shortly.  The acronym for this Strategic Messaging Formula™ is CCEIOA: Capture, Connect, Educate, Incentivize, Offer and Automate: Remember the acronym and you won’t forget the process.   

The Scientific Strategic Messaging Formula™

It’s a proven formula for marketing success.  It’s a scientific approach to marketing that is based on human nature and when properly executed drives your prospects and customers to this conclusion.  Go ahead and say it with me: “I’d have to be completely CRAZY to work with anybody else but you no matter the price.”

So, let’s break down each component of the strategic messaging formula.

Before I break down the five components of the Strategic Messaging Formula™ I need to give you a quick lesson on modern studies in neurological science.  Don’t worry this is not that technical.  Even though I might use some big scientific words and yes this is incredibly important when it comes to marketing. Understanding what I am about to share with you is basically going to be the big difference as to whether or not you just get by like everyone else in the marketplace or if you completely dominate your market.  So, pay attention; this is some important stuff.

Now the first big scientific term I need to introduce you to is the Reticular Activating System or RAS for short.  The reticular activating system is basically a part of your brain that controls certain functions of consciousness.  More specifically, the RAS is a loose network of neurons and neuro-fibers running through the brain stem.  These neurons connect with other various parts of the brain.  The functions of the reticular activating system are many and varied.  Studies actually show that it contributes to the control of sleep, walking, sex, eating, and even elimination.  The most important function of the RAS is its control of your consciousness.  You see, it is believed that the RAS or reticular activating system controls your functions of sleep, wakefulness, and your ability to consciously focus attention on something.  Additionally, the RAS acts as a filter, dampening down the effect of repeated stimuli like loud noises, such as TV commercials, which allows you to focus and also helps you to prevent your senses from being overloaded. 

So, what in the world does this have to do with marketing?  Well, everything.  Think about what I just described about your own brain.  There is actually a part of your brain that filters out what to pay attention to and what to disregard and it is called the reticular activating system.  So, it should be obvious that your goal in marketing is to make your prospects reticular activating system your best friend.  You want their RAS to pay attention to you, your company, and your products and services and to disregard everything else.  It’s a pretty simple goal but making that happen isn’t necessarily as easy.  I am going to teach you exactly how to do it when we walk through the Strategic Messaging Formula™ and then you will understand much better about how and why the Strategic Marketing Program™ is a scientific approach to marketing as opposed to a creative approach.

Before I can explain how to make your prospects RAS, (from now on I am just going to call the reticular activating system the RAS), to be your best friend I need to explain a little something more about your brain.  Specifically, we need to talk about alpha brain waves and beta brain waves, seriously.  Scientists have discovered that your brain is made up of billions of brain cells called neurons and that these neurons actually communicate with one another using electricity.  This electric communication can actually be detected and measured using a piece of medical equipment called an electroencephalograph or EEG which was invented by Dr. Hans Berger back in 1924. 

Let me say right here that this topic is covered in my Total Market Domination 4-CD audio set and you should download it now and listen to me cover this topic in detail.  The following explanation is greatly edited for length.  The text version of this would be 24 pages, and not very many people are going to read a document that long.  I have abbreviated the text for the web just to give you a quick overview.

The Scientific Strategic Messaging Formula™

Now I want to teach you how to find and teach you how to create the right activators and put this knowledge to work for you in your business. 

Capture

Now let’s talk about the first component of the Strategic Messaging Formula™.  As a reminder, it is capture.  Yes, this is the most obvious part of the formula, but I can tell you it is done wrong more often than not.  In fact, this is really one of the major areas of false doctrine that you are going to have to unlearn if you really want to rise to a place of total dominance. 

You see, large corporations and their Madison Avenue ad agencies have been using all types of strange creative methods for years to get your attention.  Unfortunately, the memories of these advertising agents are stuck in your head, so you are likely to follow this lead since you really don’t know any different.  You know this type of advertising well.  Budweiser had the frogs and the lizards.  Pepsi uses Britney Spears practically naked, and they used to use Michael Jackson with his hair on fire.  GEICO has a talking Gecko and years ago Mr. Whipple used to tell us not to squeeze the Charmin.  Remember the old lady who used to ask us, “Where’s the beef?”  Remember those Wendy’s commercials?

Hot Buttons

Now it’s getting to the meat and potatoes, and yes, I love potatoes, after all, I’m a Georgia boy, of how to properly capture a prospect’s attention.  In short, you need to use hot buttons.  Many people have different definitions for what a hot button is.  Our definition is simple.  A hot button is an activator that is important or relevant to a prospect, that’s it.  Now remember, an activator is something that is familiar, unusual, or problematic and it snaps people out of auto mode and into conscious mode.  Those activators cause your RAS to send you a signal that says, “Yo bro!  Pay attention.”  But the most important thing here is to get your prospect to not only pay attention but to remain interested.  This is the big key that is missing in nearly all of the ads you’ve seen that have otherwise successfully captured people’s attention. 

If you get this part of the process right, you’ll be light-years ahead of your competition.  Let me give you some examples.  Let’s say you see one of Coke’s billboards with a polar bear drinking a coke.  It might capture your attention because the animal is familiar, and it is doing something unusual.  When the brain seeks for any clarifying information that makes it important or relevant it finds nothing, so you revert quickly back into auto mode.  You see how that works?  

Connect

Component two of the Strategic Messaging Formula™ is Connect.  We basically already introduced you to this kind of concept in the previous paragraph about hot buttons but let’s dive into it a little bit deeper.  The concept of connecting is pretty simple but it’s incredibly important.  The concept again is that after a prospect has had their attention captured the brain will seek for additional information to determine if it’s important or relevant to them.  If that additional clarifying information is not present the prospect will resort back to auto mode.  If there is additional information that connects with emotional hot buttons which are relevant or important to the prospect, then the prospect will literally make a temporary emotional connection with you or with your marketing material.  They will be completely snapped out of auto mode, and they will be fully attentive to your marketing content.  In short, they are now paying close attention and they are in conscious mode and you, my friend are in a position to sell them something. 

Educate

Now that your target market, or let’s just say it’s Paul the proverbial prospect, has had his attention captured (step 1) and has emotionally connected (step 2) with hot buttons, the next step is to educate.  You now need to become the source for any and all relevant information in regard to your products or services or your industry altogether.

You must be the fountain from which all knowledge flows.  You need to give your prospect enough quality, not necessarily quantity but enough quality information about what to look for, what to avoid, and what constitutes the best deal.  In short, you need to define the criteria for what the very best option in your industry is.  Not only should you define it but you should’ve already innovated yourself to the point where nobody else can offer this but you.  So, you are in control the whole time.  You define what constitutes the best deal and you also happen to be the only company who can deliver on that deal. 

The way to do this is to think like an attorney for a minute.  Now, don’t think like an attorney in terms of mimicking their advertisements because attorneys are just as bad at creating marketing material as everybody else.  In fact, attorneys are remarkably bad at creating ads.  Especially considering what they do for a living.  I mean, think about it, an attorney’s job is to prove a point, guilty or innocent, that’s it.  They can’t use platitudes and they must be specific and provide real evidence to convince a jury of 12 beyond any reasonable measure of doubt.  In marketing it’s the same thing.  You have got to build a case that brings people to the conclusion that they would have to be completely CRAZY to work with anybody else but you no matter the price.

Incentivize

Now the next component of the Strategic Messaging Formula™ is ‘incentivize’.  We talked about this briefly already, but the point here is to give your customers a low-risk incentive to take the next step in the buying process.  In other words, you need to lead your prospects down the sales cycle and in doing so lead them to you. 

Now there is a really important point to make here going back to the concept of the sales cycle.  Remember how we talked about how there are always more people who would be considered “future buyers” compared to “now buyers”.  The “future buyers” make up points 1 to 80 or so on the educational spectrum (sales cycle) while the “now buyers” make up points 80 to 100. 

Here’s the beauty of the fourth component, the incentive.  This step gives you the opportunity to capture the contact information of 100% of the sales cycle, not just “now buyers” and not just “future buyers” but everybody.  It also puts you in control of your target market and gives you direct access to them without having to rely so heavily on advertising and traditional orthodox marketing mediums.  Think about it.  What would you give to have the contact information for everybody in your target markets that are going to buy what you sell in the next year or so?  If you had such a list, what would you send those people?  You see how obvious this stuff starts to become?

Offers

The fifth component is Offers.  Once you feed your prospects with the right information, it’s time to provide them with multiple offers.  Did you know offers are a great way to turn an engaged audience into customers?  No matter how good your marketing efforts are, the success or failure of your business depends on the product offer.  It’s an effective approach to motivate your customers to buy from you and maximize the response rate.  A good product offer must have the following features:

• It should address the pain points of the customers
• Convinces your prospects that your products or services can solve their problems
• It must be simple and relatable to your prospect’s life

Perfecting a product offer can take a long time but once done, it’s an easy way to make the most of your existing marketing channels.

Automate

Now the sixth component of the Strategic Messaging Formula™ is automate.  What this refers to is a simple technique of automating the way you communicate with your target market.  More specifically, it refers to automating your follow-up sequence with prospects who have opted into your list as described in the previous track.  This is incredibly important.  In fact, an MIT study has recently determined that follow-up is 22 times more effective when it happens in five minutes or less.  Decades of sales training have proved that most prospects don’t buy from you until you have communicated with them at least seven times. 

Those are pretty shocking statistics, but they make a lot of sense.  Just think about the last thing you purchased.  I mean something of significant worth, not like your groceries or clothes or other basic needs like that.  As a businessperson think of the last major product or service you bought for your business.  How many times did you connect or communicate with the sales rep or marketing content from that company before you committed?  It was probably seven times or more, right?  You met them somewhere, they followed up on the phone, you probably exchanged three or four e-mails, they probably then sent some more information like a brochure or something which you probably didn’t read, and then they sent a follow-up appointment, and somewhere after that you finally bought, right?  That’s the normal process.

Here is a relevant point to be made:  follow-up sequences need to be automated.  As humans we are terrible about following up.  We always forget or come up with excuses.  Today there are hundreds of automatic follow-up tools that can do this for you.  Even if you don’t use an automated piece of software, you should still create a specified follow-up system or sequence that is manually executed in the exact same manner every time for every customer as part of your overall marketing system no matter what you do just make sure every prospect is followed up with multiple times with high quality relevant information that captures, connects, informs, and yes, incentivizes.

As I am sure you can see, automatic follow-up is a powerful new weapon in any company’s marketing arsenal.  I think you’d have to be crazy not to implement this kind of a tool.  We use it in our business, and we use it for our clients.  Can you see yourself using an automatic follow-up system such as this?  What kind of effect do you imagine it would have on sales in just this year alone?  Think about that as we move along. 

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