Making Marketing Easy with NLP -Learn how your market thinks

Abraham Maslow, was an Psychologist and a practicing professor in a number of american educational institutions and is most well known for his studies and theories around self actualization.  Maslow, who was described as mentally unstable as a child, believed that the ultimate aim of human beings was to achieve this self actualised state. A state when a persons entire system was in flow, when success Is seemingly effortless and when as Human beings we are operating at our best.  

Maslow describes our physiological needs as our most basic needs and those needs that need to be satisfied for use to function. These are the needs that thankfully a lot of us take for granted, most of the time, such as our need for food and drink, a roof over our head, basic comfort and undisturbed sleep. 

 In this lecture we are going to investigate a little further into two more needs that  Maslow identified in his hierarchy of needs.. The need for appreciation is  a huge motivator for a lot of people. And many of us actively seek out the fulfilment of this need both internally and externally. In personal development circles there is a lot of talk of self esteem and self worth. 

Let's take a look at some of the common traits of self actualized people and whilst we do remember, these are the traits of people who have satisfied all of their needs to that self actualized point, for many people these are aspirational traits. To your market, the people you are marketing to, these are the traits that they ultimately desire. And depending on where they are in the Hierarch of needs they may be highly motivated to obtain them which means they may very well be highly receptive to your marketing message 

Self actualised people are comfortable with who they are and self actualised people, are able to effectively reframe past experiences, to learn from them and take positive feedback from them. So next up, Self actualised people are Spontaneous and natural. And by that I mean, that they are as we refer to them in NLP, congruent and authentic, by congruent, I mean that their physiology and their actions are in alignment with the things that they say or communicate. 

 
One of the traits that consistently cam up when Maslow was investigating self actualized people was their ability to gain a lot of benefit from time spent alone. 
He referred to this as having comfort with solitude. And this reflective time comes up again and again in people that are successful despite self actualised people being able to form good relationships with others. 

These are really important when it comes to successful marketing. For the most part our prospects decision to buy our products and services is very much an emotional decision. 
As we go about our day to day we encounter marketing and this marketing, if it holds the solutions to satisfying our needs will trigger a buying interest. These buying triggers happen automatically and they have a lot of energy, when we encounter a buying trigger we are highly motivated to make a purchase or transact a deal.

 The reality is that your prospects jump about across this hierarchy on a regular basis. And there will be some good prospects for your product or service likely residing at different levels on the hierarchy and one of the biggest mistakes that people make when they are creating a marketing campaign is to create the message based upon their perception of what people want and not the needs of their prospects which usually results in one message communicated from the perspective of someone with different needs to the end user

Next we look at what typically happens next when someone is in the process of satisfying their needs.
So the prospect has determined that they have a need and that it needs satisfying. Maybe they have decided that it is time for a new computer and the net thing that they will do is seek out information on how best to meet that need. And this is when they go on a product reconnaisance. They will trawl the internet looking for reviews, speak to their friends and family, read articles and blogs about new computers. And generally see if they can get a feel for what is out there that has the potential to satisfy their needs.

Once the motivation has started prospects will go out and do a product reconnaissance to see what will best meet and satisfy their needs. And another aspect of this is the discovery of what else is out there.  And there are couple of things that determine both the time this takes and secondly the level of investigation that goes into discovering what other options might be available and these are whether the product or service is likely to be a significant purchase and by that I mean cost a significant amount of money. 

They have conducted a product or service reconnaissance to see what else is out there, and to see if there are other ways of fulfilling the need that they have. And they have considered alternative options for satisfying their need. And either consciously or unconsciously they have weighed up what is an acceptable solution to their problem. So at this point they have expectations, they have the information that they are looking for. And our job is to feed our marketing message to them in a way that gives them all of that information and makes us the most attractive option of them

With sales we have direct influence, over the prospects state with marketing we are delivering a message to them when they are in a particular state. 
And believe it or not, the job is not over when the prospect has purchased. 
Now obviously the first thing to mention is that your product or service must deliver on its promise. That is a given, and if you are an ethical marketer that won’t be a problem for you at all. 
However in the General buying strategy in NLP we talk about re-assurance strategies which run post sale. And These tell us that the job of the marketer is not over.

 What we can do to covertly influence our audience into becoming more motivated to fulfil their needs and the first thing we are going to look at is Reciprocity. 
Now the power of reciprocity in marketing circles has been known for ages and you will see it all over the place and there Is a good reason for this and that is that It works.  The concept of reciprocity id based on the idea that if someone gives something to us, in some way we feel obliged to give something back to them

When we are marketing to potential clients, one of the biggest mistakes a lot of people make is assuming that everyone that has a need fulfilled will instantly part with cash given the opportunity. There are a lot of people that do this, a lot of people who simply see what they want and buy it. I am one of those people.
However. This is not the norm, and one of the best ways particularly if you have a high ticket product or service of getting your prospect to ultimately buy from you is to them first to buy into you.

 As a rule, we human beings prefer to have a life that is in balance and for the most part we resist change. This is something that if you work in personal development circles you will have come across a great many times. So strong in fact is the desire to keep things consistent, that we may even persist with negative or damaging behaviour rather than face the unknown world that changing it would open up

In this lecture, we are going to take al look at the seemingly counter intuitive technique of the door in the face technique. Now this is again very effective and draws upon the concept of anchoring. Not conditioned response anchoring but more expectational anchoring. 
And the counter intuitive nature of this technique is that by getting the prospect to turn down your offer, you set the bar, you set the expectation of cost or rather value. 

The wonderful Franklin Effect. This is such a cool technique and I use it a lot because it is incredibly effective. I use this in general conversation and when I am working with a client to get buy in to an idea as well so this technique is really flexible. 

 If you get a bargain on an item, have you ever noticed ho you feel compelled to tell people about it. It almost fulfils an esteem need, when we tell people how smart we are for getting a  deal. And of course we don’t want to lose face by missing out on something that is a no brainer just because we didn’t act quickly enough and that is where our next marketing tool comes in. The concept of scarcity is used extensively and particularly on line. And in fact in my opinion at least. Perhaps a little too often. The reason I say this is that we can sometimes become conditioned to these tactics and when we do they lose their effectiveness somewhat. 

In this lecture we are going to take a look at the effect of social proof. Which states that we are influenced by the people we know, our friends family and our peer to the point that we are more likely to make purchases if people in our social groups have done so. 
This is how trends start and how a craze can seem to take over the world. Once a new idea has become accepted within social groups, then those people who have not yet joined in feel compelled to do so. 

in this lecture  we are going to deal with something really important and that is the concept of exposure. 
Now one of my frustrations when I am dealing with new business start ups and owners is their often complete misunderstanding of this concept of exposure. 

In this lecture we are going to discuss a really interesting phenomenon that you can use in your marketing endeavours to encourage people to join your sales process.
And this is the decoy effect which utilises a dummy offering that drives your audience though to the real offering you are looking for them to tale a hold of. 

I am referring to is the general direction of perception when we consider a product or service. Is that generally positive or generally negative. 
IN the case of pricing products this boils down to, do we continue the engagement process positively or is there anything to distract the prospect which they may consider to be less than positive or indeed negative. Are they gaining through their experience or losing. 

Next up is another really interesting marketing tool that has its roots in the principal of away from motivation. 
Now its a simple concept and one you may well recognize in your own life  and it works on the principal that when we have something, when we possess it, we attach more value to it then when we didn’t.  Or that we don’t attach as much value to things we want as things we have. 

At the end of this lecture you should be in a good position to identify your target market, and importantly you will be able to decide which approach and which tools you will be using to influence your prospective audience.  All of the things we have covered are really powerful and of course you can use any combination of the tools that we have discussed to maximise the efficiency of your campaigns. 

 If you haven’t done so already decide on your image, and your corporate objectives. What does your brand stand for? What are its values and beliefs? 
A little tip would be to imagine your business as a person and then inquisitively explore its personality. 
And then once you are happy that you have defined your brand and what it stands for, don’t change it. Keep It solid and unchanging across all of the marketing channels you use.  that sees