In the video above I use one of the dirty rotten tricks straight up. Can you guess what it is? More importantly do you know why I did it?

I did it because statistics tell me I only have about eight seconds to grab your attention. If I fail to achieve that, odds are you are going to lose interest and head off to do something else like.

Check your Facebook status, twitter feed, stop the kids from killing each other, you get the picture. So ensuring that I capture your attention quickly is vital. And the reason that I want your attention is because I want you to learn how to market your business effectively.

At this point you may be thinking, why would I want to teach you how to market your business yourself? After all Beanie you are are marketing consultant aren’t you? What is the benefit of teaching me everything you know?

My number one purpose (with all of my video’s, blog posts etc) is to educate business owners just like yourself, so that you can make informed intelligent decisions about how you spend your hard earned cash on your marketing. This has two main purposes...

1. It shines the spotlight on the unethical marketers out there.  
2. It builds a level of trust with you, because I am giving you something of value.

As you may have already guessed, these aren’t really dirty rotten tricks. They are sound ethical marketing strategies that are going to build trust with your market, and brand you as the expert within your industry. So let’s get straight into it so that you can start using them in your business immediately.

One

It’s called a pattern interrupt. And I did it by asking you a question at the start of the video. Not what you were expecting right? You see if I didn’t do that and I served you up the usual…

"Hi my name is Adam Bean, and I am a marketing consultant with over eight years experience"

Yawn you have disappeared already. Probable to stop the kids from killing each other, or possible you are on YouTube and watching a video of surfing dogs. Long story short, I would never see you again. BTW surfing dogs certainly are fun to watch. Admit it I know you have done it as well!

Two

You have to write great headlines that capture people’s attention. They say that a headline is an ad for your advertisement. I don’t know exactly who they are, but I do know that they are right.

For arguments sake let’s assume you have a video that you want your market to watch just like the one at the top of this post. If you write a weak headline that doesn’t clearly spell out the benefit that your potential watcher is going to get from viewing your video, then they are never ever going to click that play button no matter how good your video is. Side note I have used video as an example but the same rings true for articles, blog posts or any other form of media you are using.

Three

You then need to make sure the information in your video is relevant to the headline that you have written. Do not under any circumstances copy the old marketing strategy used in the eighties where they used to write a headline something along these lines.

Sex. Now that I have your attention.

Headlines like that are a huge no no because it wastes peoples time, something they have very little of these days. Do it and they and they are never going to come back again.

Four

In this dirty rotten trick you understand that your potential customer’s problem is the reason they are reading your advertising. They are not watching your video (visiting your website etc) to find out who you are or how long you have been in business for.

I am forever telling people this about their websites.

Only your Mum and your Grandma come to your website and want to read about you. Everyone else couldn’t care less. When someone comes to your website they want a solution to their problem. And that my friend is all that they are interested in.

That may sound harsh, but it’s reality.  

Five

Smart marketers understand that you are a real live person not some statistic. So they craft all of their messages to speak directly to you as if you were both at the pub on Saturday afternoon having a one on one chat. I mean if you really wanted to be treated like a number you can just deal with Telstra! Sorry couldn’t help myself, anyone that lives in Australia will know exactly what I am talking about.

They know that valuable customer like yourself are not just tyre kickers that will just waste their time. They understand that you want to know as much as possible about the investment you are about to make, and no high pressure sales pitch is going to persuade you to buy from them just because they are desperate for a sale.

What they do is patiently educate you about their services, and wait until you are ready to buy.

So there you have it. Dirty rotten tricks one to five. In part two of this post we are going to cover off tricks six to ten.

Your challenge for this post is to pick one of the tricks above, and start using it immediately. Not tomorrow, not next week, right now.

Which one did you pick? What are you going to go away and do right now? Drop me a comment so that I can check it out.