There are three levels of sophistication in advertising…
And I’m not talking about your target market’s sophistication levels here. I’m talking about you: The advertising sophistication of business owners doing the marketing.
The first and most basic level of sophistication is branding.
This is where you’re just trying to get your name out there. And your marketing only revolves around you, your brand promotions, getting top of mind, that kind of thing…
Most people stay at this basic level forever.
To give you an example: A Realtor who’s at the first level of sophistication would market their service by saying something like, “Call Dean and start packing…”
The next level of advertising sophistication is convincing.
This is where, instead of shining the light on you - the business owner, you shine the light on your prospect.
In other words, if you’re at the second level of sophistication you don’t talk about you anymore. Instead, you start making offers to your prospects. And you’re trying to get them to respond.
Here, to keep our Realtor example, you’d say something like, *"Find out how much your house is worth…” or, "*find out how to sell your house in less than 90 days guaranteed…” and so on.
Of course, this is much better than just talking about you. But your response rate is still going to be small. Because you’ll only get people who are ready to buy right now.
Which brings us to the third, and the ultimate level of advertising sophistication…
Market data.
And what you’re doing here is, you’re separating the compelling from the convincing.
In other words, instead of shining the light on you, or your prospects… You take that spotlight, you turn it over your prospect's shoulder… And you illuminate the information that's valuable to them.
You’re not making them offers. And you’re not trying to convince them to do anything. Instead, you’re giving them something they’re already looking for. Or thinking about.
Going back to our Realtor example: If you’re at level three of sophistication, you offer them something like “June 2019 Report on Winter Haven Lakefront House Prices.”
Because here’s the thing…
At level three, all you want to do is to start the conversation with your prospects. All you want to do is to help them with their decision making. That’s why you’re offering them something neutral. Like market data.
At level three, all you want to do is to start the conversation with your prospects.
Because you also know something else...
If they’re your 5-star prospect, someone that’s already looking for something you provide…
The market data is not going to be enough.
You know that once they see what the Lakefront houses are going for, the next thing they're going to want to know is...
“I wonder what’s my house worth?”
And bam! That’s all you want. An entree to open up the conversation with them.
Now, you’ve opened the door for you to start doing the convincing. And you can go on offering them, say, the Pin-Point Price Analysis to find out exactly what their house would sell for compared to the other homes on the market…
Or something like that...
So tell me, what’s your level of advertising sophistication?