August 26, 2011
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Company Culture
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How often do you sit down to read a book or article and think “That’s fine for your consumer product, but what about my industrial B2B product or service? That won’t work for me!” I hate to burst your bubble, but it will work for you.
Consumer brands are popular illustrations of branding and marketing strategies for two big reasons: we’ve all seen and interacted with these brands and these companies have made the deep pocket investment in research to prove that these methods work.
You can use these stealth marketing methods in your business just as well as the big brands do. All it takes is taking the time to get to know your customer, finding out what makes them tick and then setting up a purchase friendly environment that will get them to choose you every time.
Here are eight stealth marketing strategies that big brands are using to get you to buy.
1. Let smells rule
Because our sense of smell is hardwired while still inside the womb, it becomes a powerful influencer in how we feel and what we buy. If you’re in the food business, consider venting your delicious scents into the street.
2. Play music
Sounds trigger cravings. So, it’s not uncommon to hear music playing in stores or restaurants, but have you considered the influence it has on our behavior? Slow and calm music lulls us and removes stress, while faster music encourages us to move along. Some restaurants play faster music during dinner to keep tables rotating.
3. Post pictures
People are influenced by the pictures around them. Seeing a picture of a bowl full of cold ice cream draws you to the freezer isle or to the desert menu. In the industrial and B2B markets, seeing high-tech instruments efficiently working with happy people surrounding them might sound fluffy, but it triggers a mental picture of an efficient, easy operation—something that customers want.
4. Add influencers
People tend to follow the crowd. A street musician will seed his pot with dollars and that encourages people to throw more money into the pot. Presenters and speakers will seed their crowds with people to ask questions to trigger more participation. Brands like Pampered Chef and Tastefully Simple use home parties where people you know and trust start purchasing and that triggers others to purchase. The next time you’re at a trade show, be sure to invite lots of corporate friends, clients and customers to drop in to seed your booth during a demonstration.
5. Create a feedback and reward mechanism
More than 3 billion hours are spent on gaming. People get addicted to a variety of games because they are a self-selected activity, they provide a challenge and they also give immediate feedback. Getting customers engaged into your process and then providing immediate feedback gets them sucked into the activity. If you’ve ever played Farmville or Mafia Wars, then you may have seen how brand names like Green Giant are using redeem codes or coupons in exchange for virtual money. An easy way for a small business to put this into practice is to enroll customers into a customer feedback program. Using an application like SurveySwipe, companies can lauch super short surveys to customers. In exchange for their feedback customers can earn points to use toward apps or Amazon rewards.
6. Set the stage
People are very sensitive to distance. If you want someone to do something, put it within arm’s reach. In the same way that a retail store places low-cost, high-profit baubles next to the checkout, you can entice customers by placing attractive downloads on the home page of your web site or blog.
7. Sell to the sexes
As human beings, we purchase any product, consumer or industrial by emotions. We just like to delude ourselves that the specifications matter. In fact, when it comes to selling to the sexes—sex still sells, just in subtly different ways. For women, it’s about romance, nostalgia and relationship. Men like to hide their deep interest in being perceived as tough, strong, and capable by disguising their emotions behind specifications. Regardless of the product or service you are selling, look for ways to attach the emotion of “Looking Good” behind the features and specifications.
8. Use celebrities in your industry
Every industry and market has their celebrities—not just consumer brands. The best place to find these influencers is at big industry conferences. Big brands put themselves within arm’s reach of celebrities and niche brands can do the same thing. In most industries it’s hard to tell the difference between one product and the next. Celebrities and experts help us make those choices.
The bottom line is that people make buying decisions. Whether the product or service is consumer or industrial there are deeply rooted emotional influencers at play. You might be tempted to view these stealth strategies as manipulation—and in a way, they are. They are also being used to influence your purchasing day in and day out.
What many people forget, however, is that doing the research involved in creating effective and persuasive marketing strategies brings you closer to understanding your customer than you have ever imagined. When you design a marketing strategy to influence your customers to purchase your product or service instead of the competition you will gain more empathy and understanding for what’s important to your customer within your organization as well as add dollars to your bottom line.
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