(AKA The Black Box Concept)
The real underlying reasons behind every consumer decision are not completely understandable, it may even seem illogical at times. Marketing Black Box (AKA, The Black Box Concept) is about marketers attempt to determine the various factors and patterns that drives consumer into their decision. It is every marketers dream to understand the inner workings in the consumers mind so that we will be able to speculate or even predict the outcomes of our marketing campaign.
But How Do We Unlock The Black Box of Marketing?
Unlocking the Marketing Black Box requires the fundamentals of marketing and beyond. Many consider it as Part Art and Part Science, it involves both the rational and the romantic. But it all really boils down to the following:
(1)Our ability to measure our marketing activities and determine the implications behind the figures.
(2)Our understanding of the behavioral and psychological aspect behind the consumer decision process.
(3) The knowledge, skills, tools and resources to master the above 2.
If you can have all 3 , you will be able to unlock The Marketing Black Box.
By sharing my experience, observations and knowledge about marketing here, I hope we can engage in some interesting conversation. We can share and learn from each other knowledge and experiences; be it the very basic or the latest marketing ideas, case studies, tools and resources…etc. Perhaps we can even unlock and discover a few new ideas and fresh perspective inside our Marketing Black Box together?
So tell me, what’s your latest discovery in your Marketing Black Box?
Or you can check out the following [Marketing Black Box] post and add your thoughts:
- Is the 4Ps Marketing Mix No Longer Practical?
- Impulse Driven Action or In action?
- Is There anything wrong with a Sales Pitch?
- Digging deeper into the Trust Issues…
- GREED Driven Marketing- Is it a Sin?
Hi Jason,
Interesting coversation initiating post.
I hope it develops well and that everybody finds something of interest here.
Where can we start?
Perhaps we can start pinpointing the all the motivators of marketing, both from the marketer’s angle and from the prospective buyers’ angle.
What is the first motivator for a marketer?
What is the first motivator for a prospective buyer?
For some marketers the first motivator is probably greed.
But there are marketers firstly motivated by an ethycal
sense. Avoiding being judgemental, we could agree that the two opposing motivators have a place in marketing, like the binary forces that seem to drive life.
Greed is a very powerful force, and is instrumental in developing new mechanics. But an ethycal sense can leverage the new mechanics for a good end.
For example, greed devices scams. Ethycal marketers can turn a scam into an opportunity to warn prospective buyers about the scam, and so create an outpost of information and trust.
So a marketer can create a good business leveraging the scams around acai berry, directing prospective buyers to a reputable acai berry supplier.
That’s from me for now.
Giofranco,
http://focusingwithyou.com
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Jason Ser Reply:
July 27th, 2010 at 10:25 pm
Thanks Giofranco,
Interesting point of view you have here. Especially on the “binary forces” of life only to be put in a marketing perspective.
Business Ethics is a hard issue to tackle. Your view remind me of the 1987 movie [Wall Street], where the character Gordon Gekko played by Michael Douglas
presented the ever famous : “Greed Is Good…” Speech.
Like you said Greed device scams both from the marketer’s and prospect’s mind.I always believe the greatest scam is within our mind when we have either
a desperate need or unquenchable greed in the 1st place. And when that happen? Trust me, is not easy for any Ethical marketers to warn the prospective buyer from jumping in to that scam they are getting. I once witness how powerful greed is on humans, it was a news in Taiwan when a old man was right in front of the ATM machine ready to transfer his hard earn cash to a scam artist, someone of from the bank found out and called the police to talk some sense to him for like half an hour and soon become a heated argument when the police have no choice but to drag him away from the ATM machine just to save him. Incredible but true!
But Scam like the above is obvious. How about those so called legitimate internet marketing offering outdated and crappy PLR products disguised as a fast cash opportunities to the prospect? They are not doing anything illegal but never the less walk on the thin line of misinforming the prospect with Hype.
So which is more scary? Hype on under delivered products or Obvious Scam?
Cheers
Jason Ser
P/S: I believe they are making Wall Street II which will be releasing soon. You can check out the trailer here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oV5hEBqYfTE
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I believe that point 2 is most critical. If you do not understand the basic principles in why your customer buys then your figures & numbers in point 1 will always be poor. You can drive a lot of traffic to a sight but see low conversion because when the visitor arrives they see nothing that convinces them to take action. The first rule is to try to talk to their deepest desires & wants, then if you can present the solution they will do almost anything.
Joey Bushnell
http://josephbushnell.com
[Reply]
Jason Ser Reply:
August 6th, 2010 at 6:00 pm
Hi Joseph,
So happy you can visit my blog here.
You are right. Point 2 is one critical point that a lot of marketers missed,especially in Internet Marketing. It is very hard to drive traffic to a site and
it just take less than a second for your visitors to click and delete your mail or closed a window on their browser. Only if we can lead them in a right way
follow by providing real value, be it our service, products or even content that can provide them a solution.
Cheers
Jason Ser
P/S: And thanks for helping me with my book.
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Hi Jason,
Thanks for your post. I agree.
Here is the answer to your question:
My latest discovery is The Secret of Video Marketing WORKS!!!
And big time, too.
That is to say, what do you have to do to be seen by your potential customers? The easiest way by far is video, and far too few Internet marketers are using it.
Of course, all your factors flow into creating the videos, that is, the right message. After that, it’s getting the message heard.
Great new section, Jason.
Max
[Reply]
Jason Ser Reply:
August 6th, 2010 at 5:59 pm
Hello Mr.Personality Max,
I have no doubt Video Marketing works wonder for you. You are a natural charm and I enjoyed your video very much.To be honest Max, I have issues with Video Marketing in the sense that English is not exactly my 1st language and I have doubt on whether I can be articulate and deliver as well as you? Any suggestion from you as a Video Marketing Master?
Cheers
Jason Ser
[Reply]
Hi Jason,
How are you.
I still believe that consumers are mostly impulse buyers.
How many times have you or your girlfriend/wife been out shopping. You go specifically for 1 or 2 items and come back with 3 or 4. You have bought the other 2 on impulse. Shops and retailers are very good at marketing to prospects within their store. Not so good at getting them there in the first place.
I think this is very true of buyers in the “make money online” niche. People go shopping for a solution to their problem. Normally debt. This is a very strong driving factor. This makes them buy on impulse.
Pete
[Reply]
Jason Ser Reply:
August 7th, 2010 at 1:40 pm
Hi Pete,
Tell about it!
How many times we purchased a 3 in 1 special bundle napkins, just because is in a offer price while we still have a long way before we run out at our homes.
Is those little cleverly rafted message we seen at the entrance, on the rack, at the cashier, on the public announcement that keep feeding into our mind…Buy But But More.
And you had just put one naked truth of the “make money online” niche under the Sun when you wrote…
…People go shopping for a solution to their problem. Normally debt. This is a very strong driving factor. This makes them buy on impulse.
Buying More To Get Out Of Debt?!
Sound kind of strange but is happening.
Cheers
Jason Ser
[Reply]
“I have issues with Video Marketing in the sense that English is not exactly my 1st language and I have doubt on whether I can be articulate and deliver as well as you?”
Jason,
This isn’t just a valid concern but it’s also expressed by quite a few people. Let me give you a couple of bullet points:
- scripting (don’t improvise)
- retakes (I sometimes do 15 or 20 retakes before I am vaguely satisfied)
- get others to check your video before you distribute it
- get a native English speaker to do voice overs for you
I’ll provide a longer, much more detailed answer in my forthcoming course.
Thanks for your question, Jason, it was very valuable for me (and others, I hope).
Max
[Reply]
Jason Ser Reply:
August 9th, 2010 at 9:06 pm
Thank you Max again for being so opened to share your experience here. It is valuable as it makes us realize the real effort we can learned and followed behind the great video persona you demonstrated on the personal videos you produced.
Cheers
Jason Ser
[Reply]
Hi jason,
I left a comment on your other post re the 4 or 5 P’s of marketing so I won’t repeat those thoughts here.
This is an interesting thread and has raised some points that I have some difficulty accepting.
People do buy on impulse but not as much as is being stated here. Your particular example Jason of someone under stress with financial debt may well do something on impulse BUT then again they may not do anything at all – even if the solution offered is the ideal one..why because they are also internally defeated and have probably made so many poor decisions in the past that led them into this situation of debt…they react in the complete opposite way to impulse buyers. They can be totally incapable of making any decisions. I have actually seen examples of this behaviour and all these folks are doing is not trying out anything but just going through the motions in a near moronic state.
Secondly Joseph commented about “talking to people’s deepest desires” etc. I hear this point of “building a relationship” with your list to create trust many times. The thinking is that trust can then lead to a more profitable list. Do you really believe that people are that gullible and stupid?
Many “subscribers” (I really don’t like that word either) are much smarter than the people trying to market to them. Sure some clever copy-writing can create emotional triggers that lead to sales but think about the normal level of conversions..we are talking about 1 or 2% with even the “best” written sales pages that are claimed to have cost thousands. What about the other 98% who simply ignored the message or saw it for what it really was..a sales pitch.
People always will initially react negatively to a sales push of any kind. People do respond to freebies and good quality offers but don’t lets fool ourselves..we can only impact on their decision in a very minor way. And if we try to do any more then any “trust” you have created is instantly dissolved and your list starts to dwindle in size.
Even for the biggest and most successful online marketers. if the truth were really told, for them it’s never going to be a matter of “trust” – it’s simply a matter of turnover – a numbers game. so when I hear people saying they are building trust…what they are really saying is they are “setting up their targets”. is this bad…no but don’t insult people’s intelligence by thinking the giving of freebies builds trust.
This is the real online opportunity. Don’t forget the 5 P’s of offline marketing and create a business based on openness and brutal honesty. I repeat people are not stupid so let’s stop treating them that way in our marketing. If you have something of high quality to sell that you TRULY BELIEVE will benefit others then be proud of your offer and TELL them you are selling it for mutual benefit.
There are many countries in the world. like Australia and England, where people in the financial services industry (and that includes insurance) MUST declare ALL their commission and bonus-able earnings BEFORE the customer pays for the product. Think about that for a minute…Customers then will only pay the price IF they truly believe the person presenting the product is ADDING VALUE and not just presenting the product. that’s why thousands of sales people left the industry practically overnight. The interesting thing is those who survived are regarded by the customers/clients as being absolutely essential to their financial future…and most of these “sales” people do not take commissions…they charge a fee for valued added service and are making more money than ever before!
Just imagine what the impact of that type of legislation would have on online marketing!
Well there is my few dollars worth and I hope it stimulates more healthy discussion. Admittedly some of this was a bit “tongue-in-cheek” but I have always enjoyed a good debate.
Best wishes Jason
[Reply]
Jason Ser Reply:
August 22nd, 2010 at 6:22 pm
Wow! Peter,
You had brought up more than a few thought provoking issues here.In fact,you had expanded this discussion into something way bigger than I expected. So I decided response your comment here into 3 separate new posts, hopefully, to stimulate more discussions and also learning with more different angles of perspective for my readers.
Here’s where the links for the 3 response posts
Part 1 of 3 Impulse Driven Action or In action?
Part 2 of 3 Is there anything wrong with a Sales Pitch?
Part 3 of 3 Digging deeper into the Trust Issues…
If Peter’s comments somehow intrigue you a little, you can continue the discussion in the above 3 post I created.
Cheers
Jason Ser
[Reply]
I’ve recently started a blog, the information you provide on this site has helped me tremendously. Thank you for all of your time & work.
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I definitely need to learn more of the psychology. I really like the black box analogy. Its making me realize I have a lot more to learn.
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