(intro music)
- In our last session,
we looked at a business to consumer example.
Now, we're going to look at a B2B example,
and that's often a much more complex environment.
When your product costs just 20 bucks,
you can sell it off the page.
But if you're selling a B2B product or service
that's complex, possibly costing hundreds of thousands
of dollars, the sale cycle may be measured in months,
and the final decision agreed by a committee.
Well, that's a whole different ballpark.
But believe it or not, we can still use AIDA.
It's just that the sale we make isn't a product.
It's an intermediate step,
like getting prospective customers to put their head
over the parapet and say, "I'm in the marketplace."
Or, "I'll soon be in the marketplace."
Once they've identified themselves,
then we can set our salespeople onto them.
If you are in a complex, high-cost environment,
you might want to pin this to the wall.
"The objective is not to sell the product,
"it's to get prospects to identify themselves.
"Raise their heads over the parapet."
We're going to look at a real-life example
that I first used with incredible success
more than 20 years ago.
I've been repeating the process over and over again
ever since.
It involved a young software house
that developed a package to do back-office accounting.
Accounts receivable, accounts payable,
and something called general ledger.
It was priced high and intended for companies
with a turnover of more than $70 million.
The decision makers would all be main board directors,
typically the Chief Financial Officer.
The campaign was aimed at the 5,000
largest corporations in the UK,
a fiercely competitive marketplace,
a marketplace that is heavily pestered by junk mail
and mail shots.
No one buys a $150,000 software solution off the page.
Our objective should be
to get those Chief Financial Officers,
who knew they'd be in the marketplace
in the next 12 months or so, to contact us,
put their hand up and say,
"Hey, I'm going to be in the market soon."
A letter, an e-mail, a webpage or whatever asking,
"Are you in the marketplace? If so, contact us,"
and so many direct marketing pieces say just that,
would get an almost zero response.
Instead, our pitch was to sell a survival guide for free.
A guide which would tell them everything they needed to know
to be sure they were making the right decision.
This is what it looked like.
See how we used the AIDA approach.
Attention: "Evaluating Financial Accounting Software?"
You might think our headline looks boring.
But headlines don't have to be clever.
They don't have to be witty.
They don't have to be punchy.
They need to have resonance.
At the time, UK corporations were going through turmoil
trying to accommodate lots of changes coming from the EU.
They were desperate to operate multinationally,
and that meant completely changing
their accounting systems.
That's not an easy decision for large corporations.
The sheer hassle is huge, time consuming and costly.
So anyone making a major decision about replacing
their core accounting systems would be very aware
of the importance of not making a bad decision.
Yes, the headline did capture attention,
and the response rate proves it.
Interest: The copy read,
"If so, don't talk to anyone, including us,
"until you've seen our free evaluation guide."
Hmm, might be useful.
It's not a sales pitch.
It's 46 pages jam-packed with practical guidelines
you could adopt when evaluating different software options.
Yes, I'm interested.
Desire: "You could even use it to develop your own
"software strategy.
"It will almost certainly contain information
"you will not have had time to research
"and evaluate for yourself."
Yes, I want it.
Action: In this case, the call to action was a coupon.
Did it work?
Over 1,700 main board CFOs
of the 5,000 largest companies in the UK
returned the coupon.
Yes, it worked.
And it still does.
Did you notice how we used emotions
as a trigger for desire?
We come to the importance of emotion in sales copy
elsewhere in the course,
but I can't resist the temptation to show you
how well it can work within AIDA.
Even when our ultimate sale will be a complex,
expensive solution selected by board-level accountants.
Accountants? Responding to emotion?
'46 pages jam-packed" - fear.
God, what on earth have I missed?
I couldn't think of 46 pages' worth.
"Almost certainly contains information
"you won't have had time or resources
"to research for yourself."
Reinforces that fear.
"Use it to develop your software strategy."
Laziness.
"Use it as a discussion document with your colleagues."
An opportunity to shine in front of my peers: self esteem.
I was asked by a start-up two-man company
to create a lead generation campaign
that would get a high response and at the same time
position them as an established, large organization,
which clearly they were not.
They were a web development company, by the way.
We created a podcast that sounded like a BBC news item.
People in the UK will have recognized the music
as being that used by one of the main TV news channels.
The voiceover was a recognizable news reader.
To develop their interest, it said:
"There are four very different strategies you could adopt
"to exploit the web - Channel master, Customer magnet,
"Pirate and Termite."
Terms they almost certainly have never heard before.
It talked about the need for companies
to completely overhaul their marketing approach.
We got their interest.
God, I don't know what a Channel master
or a Customer magnet is.
Then, yep, it went on to offer a free, comprehensive guide
that would explain everything in layman's terms.
"Things you almost certainly won't have had time
"or resource to research for yourself."
Exactly the same approach as the printed campaign
from 20-odd years before.
The response was fantastic, and ironically,
their first sale from the campaign was a huge contract
with one of the world's biggest
management consultancy firms.
Remember, this was a two-man start-up.
The cost: professional voiceover
and music copyright release came to about $450.
Hope you found that useful.
(outro music)