I’ve been diving deep into paid advertising recently…
In fact, you may have noticed me following you around the Internet. I know, it sounds kinda creepy. And, it is. But as marketers, you have to understand what is going on. And, importantly, how to use it.
Because what I’m about to tell you is one of the biggest secrets to maximizing your online marketing success.
Me following you around the internet is only part of it. I’ll get to the full secret in a moment.
The “following you around” bit is called remarketing. (And I hesitate to define it here, at the risk of it all seeming far too obvious.)
The gist of remarketing is that I can put my ads in front of people who’ve engaged with me before. That engagement can be visiting my website, engaging with a post from my Facebook page, or any number of other events that signify that we have at least a passing relationship.
Different companies are great at this.
Occasionally I’ll mosey on over to Saddleback Leather to check out their wares. Then, I’ll start browsing the internet, minding my own business. When suddenly, I have ads for Saddleback Leather all over completely unrelated financial news sites that I’m reading for work.
The same thing happens with any number of sites I visit. I visit the site. Then, I leave. I forget about it. But suddenly, I end up seeing ads for that same site all over the internet.
Coincidence? I think not!
These are some of the highest-ROI online advertising campaigns you can run.
Once someone has engaged with you once, advertiser-after-advertiser has found that user to be far more likely to do business with you in the future.
Creating this opportunity was a smart move by the advertising networks.
It makes it easier for even smaller advertisers to get strong ROI on their platforms.
But also, it improves user experience. After all, which would you rather see: a completely irrelevant ad for something you don’t care about, or an ad for a company you know and are interested in?
The more dynamic and customized advertising is, the better it is for everyone.
Which brings me to the #1 secret to online marketing success…
And believe-it-or-not, this secret comes straight out of a book published in 1966.
Oh wait, no. That can’t be right. 1966? That’s… A whole bunch of years before internet marketing even existed.
Even Ken McCarthy can’t claim to have been teaching internet marketing for that long.
But alas, yes. It is right.
A book published over 50 years ago contains the most valuable secret you could learn for internet marketing today.
The book?
Breakthrough Advertising, by Eugene Schwartz.
(Now published by my friend and client Brian Kurtz, in partnership with Mrs. Schwartz.)
Now, I’ve written and talked about this book many times. But never quite from the angle you’re going to hear about today.
Specifically, the gold we’re digging today is in Chapters 2 and 3, about the market awareness model.
If you haven’t read the book (at least these two chapters) at least three times over, you probably shouldn’t be in marketing. (It’s expensive, yes, but a master course in great marketing. You can buy it from the only legit source of new copies at the link above.)
Here’s a short course in the Schwartz market awareness model…
Imagine a spectrum, left-to-right.
On the leftmost side is “Unaware.” This is the biggest segment of your market. But they are completely unaware of the problem your product solves, the solutions available, your products, and your offers. For all intents and purposes, they’re barely members of your market at all. Only the very best marketing can move these people to purchase, and even then, doing so successfully is rare as hens’ teeth.
To the right of that is “Problem Aware.” This is the biggest segment of people who can rightly be called “active” members of your market. They are aware that they have a problem. They are aware that they want it solved. But they still know very little about the solutions available, your products, or your offers.
Next, in the center of the spectrum, is “Solution Aware.” These are people who understand the problem your product solves, and are even aware of the categories of solutions that are available to them. They don’t yet know your product or service, but they’re pretty actively looking for solutions and will likely pick one soon. This is a smaller group than Problem Aware.
To the right of this is “Product Aware.” This yet-smaller group is full of people who are really just looking at options of what to buy. They probably know of both your products and your competitors’, and are looking for good reasons to choose one over the other.
Finally, on the rightmost side of the spectrum, is “Most Aware.” This is someone who is basically ready to buy, but hasn’t gone through the action of doing so yet. They probably know exactly what your offer is, and are simply waiting to pull the trigger for whatever reason.
Here’s what you really need to understand about this.
Every buyer goes through this awareness spectrum. That is, they go from unaware, to problem aware, to solution aware, to product aware, to most aware. And then, they buy.
In the market as a whole, you can break it into groups.
The biggest groups are the least aware. But they also are the farthest from purchase. That is, they need to be educated, motivated, and persuaded all the way through the awareness spectrum before they buy.
The further along the awareness spectrum you go, the smaller the group gets, but the more likely they are to respond to even a simple offer. They just need a little reminder to get them off the fence of indecision.
What this all has to do with remarketing…
Let’s say you’ve been on my list for a while. I’ve been writing these daily essays since April 2014. That’s almost four years. Over 1,000 essays published, and well over 1 million words.
Maybe you haven’t been on my list for that long. Maybe just a few months.
Either way, you’re probably a lot closer to the “Product Aware” section of that market awareness spectrum.
Meaning, you might know about my BTMSinsiders All-Access Pass, where you get access to ALL my training for just $37 per month (with a first-month risk-free, zero-obligation trial).
You might have even browsed through my training catalog, and picked a title or two you’d be most likely to watch first.
I don’t know. But if you’re engaging with my work, you probably know me a bit, maybe you like me (or hate me!), and you probably have at least some level of trust in my ability to deliver quality content.
And so if you are, for example, browsing the internet at you see an ad for my training, you’re far more likely to click that and sign up than the average internet user — or even someone targeted based on similar interests.
Remarketing catches prospects as they enter “most aware” — which is why it’s so high on ROI — but to make it really work, you also have to do this…
You have to feed people into the market awareness spectrum at lower levels of awareness.
That is, it’s not enough to simply invest in remarketing. Yes, it will always be your highest-ROI advertising investment.
And yet, consider what you can do to…
— Catch people who know they’re looking for a solution like yours, and point them to your product as a viable option…
— Catch people who know what problem they want to have solved, but are still trying to figure out what their solution options are…
— Or even, catch people who are becoming aware of a problem, but need it clarified before they can even start to look for solutions…
Of course, you need to figure out how to make this all work for your business, or your ad campaigns.
But when you clearly understand this, and can build your advertising to move individuals through the awareness spectrum — from unaware, to problem aware, to solution aware, to product aware, to most aware, to buying — you hold the keys to the kingdom.
Yours for bigger breakthroughs,
Roy Furr
