A New “Prospect”ive On The Alarm
An alarm, if unique enough, can wake up any person every single day. But very few alarms are capable of that. After using the same alarm over and over the person will begin sleeping through it. The alarms that work wake a person instantly causing them to be mentally alert. The first thought they have is why the alarm went off.
This is your best window of opportunity as a Marker to communicate to your client. The content you deliver will be the decision maker whether the alarm get’s snoozed or even worse, unplugged. Look at it this way, if you knew that you were going to Paris tomorrow, you’re not going to hit the snooze button because you are too far excited. As a Marketer, your product or service you signify has to have the same effect.
Now, it is not so much what you have to give, it is what your prospects get to do, get to have, and get to feel. Those three variables are what your alarm has to communicate. They don’t care what you are offering, they care about the by-products they receive in addition to their package. The only people who I know that wake up simply to get what people have to give are ebayers, and what you are offering better not be applicable to ebay. If you don’t have a good enough reason for waking them up, it’s back to sleep for the prospect and back where you started for you.
Alarms are risky, but if you don’t take the risk of the prospect hitting the snooze button then you don’t “risk” them not hitting it either. This generation is all about quickness, impulse, convenience and accessibility. That means the alarm needs to be instant, jolting, and precise. There is no time for a 2 minute elevator speech or a half-page bio of your service/product. If you can’t pass the alarm test and gain enough interest for them to wake up and act, change the ringer.
If you can’t connect with your prospect even with a change of alarm then use a back up plan and issue an alarm with the first thing most people do in your niche audience. Is the first thing they do after waking up is check their email? Do they go to Starbucks? Do they read a specific blog or online content in the morning? Get in those places and insert the alarm. Be the first thing that makes their day full of excitement and worth it.
Alarm Marketing is a new outlook at the fast-paced lifestyle of the current and future prospects. It limits the time frame that advertising and PR needs to be invested and applies the 80/20 rule more so than is advised. It implies that you, as a Marketer, have about a 4 hour time bracket each day to be the answer of a prospects problem and be the reason why waking up was easy. It also incorporates the frequent change of tactics to keep prospects appealed and coming back.
Don’t Think The Prospects Alarm Is The Only One
You know what rhymes with the “ring” of an alarm, the “cha-ching” of money being handed over to you. As @ClemensRettich puts it “Biz needs to hear the ring of the cash register as an alarm: time to wake up and follow through”. The alarm of the “cash register” means your work has just begun. You have to follow-up and give even more than what was expected. Their purchase and investment is your alarm and there is no snooze button on it. Either you act immediately or you lose your prospects future business. Clemens continues to add that “Biz fall asleep after the cash register rings. Too bad, because retention and referrals are where the value is”. With that, I will add that you can’t run a successful business if you are solely based on getting new customers because you didn’t wake up to your alarm. Business advancement as well as monetary accumulation is the sole result of recurring, reliable and committed prospects.
Stay Positive & I Resisted All This Time But… “You Snooze, You Lose”
Garth E. Beyer
