Secrets of Conversational Marketing

More Cheese and Less Whiskers

One of the reasons that mice are used as test subjects for scientific experiments is that their brains are wired very similarly to our brains. In order to live the longest possible lives, mice spend their entire lives looking for food and trying to avoid being eaten. Put another way, the two prime directives of a mouse are: 1) to get cheese, and 2) to avoid cats.

Mice will gnaw their way through the slightest crack in a brick wall to get to food. Yet, at the slightest sign of a cat’s whiskers, they’ll immediately run away.

Our prospects are very similar. If we want to find people interested in our products or services, we need to attract them with the right bait. Just like we would use cheese to attract mice, if we want to attract home buyers, we might provide a list of the best homes that are for sale in a particular neighborhood and price range. Or we might provide a free report which tells people how to buy a home with no money down.

However, we have to realize that most people don’t want to be sold. Just as the mouse can’t run away fast enough from a cat, we have to be very careful not to show our whiskers. The slightest hint that you are going to “sell” them something, will have the same effect on your prospects, even if they are indeed interested in what you have to sell.

The moral of the story is: If you want to attract more customers you need to let them see more cheese and less whiskers. This applies to both your initial advertising and to your follow-up messaging and conversations.

Baby Steps…

We do this by baby-stepping our prospects through the process.

Before we have any contact with a prospect, they are nothing more than Strangers. As a rule, strangers do not trust you PERIOD. Every child knows, you don’t talk to strangers. We can’t just start a conversation with a stranger. Instead, we need to attract them with something that they want and give them a way to get it without being scared away (remember, more cheese and less whiskers). But we don’t just want to attract any stranger. We just want to attract ones that are interested and qualified to purchase what we have to offer. One way to do this would be to run an ad offering a free report, a list of homes or other information that they can find on your website. Ideally, this information would be of interest only to people who are qualified to purchase from you. We want to be compelling and without risk.

When a stranger clicks on our ad (or follows the URL) to our website, they become Visitors. We still know very little about them, but it gives them a chance to start learning about you and what you have to offer. It’s our first opportunity to start building trust. However, they are still very easy to scare away. Ideally at this point, we’d like to capture the contact information of the best qualified visitors so that we can start a conversation with them. Usually this is done with some sort of lead capture page.

When a visitor provides us with their contact information (name, phone number, email, etc.), they become Leads. Usually, leads have provided their contact information in exchange for the free report or information that we’ve promised. However, we need to remember that most of our leads still do not want to talk with us. They don’t want to be sold. It is critical that we send the information immediately to start developing trust with our leads. The information and subsequent follow-up messages that we send should be designed to build trust with our leads and keep our information top-of-mind as much as possible.

In many businesses, it is critical that we talk with our leads if we expect to sell them anything. Once your leads are willing to talk with you, we call them Prospects. But even now, we can’t just expect our prospects to pick up the phone and call us. They’re busy. They’re distracted. And they almost certainly haven’t yet been persuaded to buy anything from you. Now we need to provide reasons for prospects to act. Reasons for them to talk with you. Reasons for them to order.

In the best case, our prospects eventually develop enough trust in you and your products to become Customers. In most businesses, customers aren’t all the same. Some will buy inexpensive starter products. Others will buy more. Some will buy repetitively. Some will develop a long term relationship with you. Others will be gone immediately.

Some customers will be so delighted with the products and services that you provide that they’ll become Promoters.

The Greased Chute

Ideally, if your marketing and sales process is setup correctly, the transition from Stranger to Customer (and eventually to Promoter) is like getting on a greased chute. Once they get on, they’ll automatically and effortlessly go right to the end.

How you talk with people at each stage of the process is critical in moving them from one stage to the next. We call this Conversational Marketing. And it really is the grease on your chute.