I just want to address this issue of SCARCITY and the use of it in marketing.

I have been Tweeting on Twitter about this subject for quite a while now but occasionally someone decides to take issue with this subject… I kinda get the feeling they think that SCARCITY is simply just some marketing tactic designed to SUCK PEOPLE IN or a CON JOB at best.

Well they are half right. Yes it is a very powerful marketing tactic that you should be using in your marketing. Especially if you are doing any form of product launch. But using scarcity as a marketing tactic is NO CON JOB.

Let me explain, but first I want to show you a tweet I sent and the complaint I got back today…

.

.

Just to clarify, the conversation starts at the bottom.

My tweet : TIP- Use SCARCITY in your product launches to create buying momentum

The reply : do people still believe that ?

My reply : That tells me you don’t understand scarcity… let me know I will gladly explain it for you

The reply : pls don’t patronise me

My reply : Ummm, would you like to learn something here that might help you or continue on your way

Conversation over…

So as you can see this person took issue in the beginning with the SCARCITY tactic and using it in marketing. I offered to show them what it actually was but they weren’t interested in learning something new.

Normally I wouldn’t take the time to write a post about this but this is the second time someone has taken issue with scarcity with me and so I just want to clarify what scarcity is in marketing. Especially electronic marketing where product can be duplicated at the click of a mouse.

Now, here is the other issue this guy had with scarcity…

.

.

This came from my post on the blog I did back May called Jonathan Budd & Mark Hoverson MLM Launch Formula. As you can clearly see, another misguided opinion about scarcity.

So what the heck, what is it about this subject that get’s people mad? Let’s have a loot at what scarcity is here to find out…

.

Two Types Of Scarcity In Marketing

There are actually two types of scarcity (that I know of) that can be used in marketing. They are…

Scarcity By Design

This is when you have for example a physical product that you only have a LIMITED quantity of. Let’s say you have a special edition book that sells for $39.95 that is personally autographed by the author, and you only have 200 of these books to sell.

Once you run out of the 200 books, that is the end of that product. Even though your customers can obtain a book after the 200 have sold out, there is NO WAY that they can purchase an autographed book. That is what you would call scarcity by design because the product (200 books) was designed with a limited quantity in mind.

So if you were selling this product you could say in your marketing that this book is for sale at $39.95… BUT… the first 200 ONLY will get an autographed book from the author. This could also be called a “never to be repeated” offer.

Do you think there would be a rush on that book to get a copy of the first 200 with the authors autograph? Absolutely there would… and you have just seen SCARCITY at work in marketing.

Another example is that your product could also just be out of date or superseded in some way, in which case you have scarcity by design. The product, let’s say a new car for example,  was only designed to be around for a selected period of time before a new model was released, so scarcity is designed into the product life from the beginning.

That is a classic example of scarcity by design. So now let’s look at scarcity by choice…

Scarcity By Choice

So then how does this principle of SCARCITY work in an electronic world were an item like an eBook can be electronically reproduced? This is where we can have SCARCITY by CHOICE. And this is where people get confused about this subject because they haven’t yet seen this aspect of scarcity at work.

Scarcity by choice is simply this… let’s say you wrote an eBook on a particular subject but you only wanted to let 200 people have the book for various reasons. It might be a HOT marketing tactic that you have discovered or something similar and you simply don’t want to let everybody on the planet have access to it. Can you see that?

How about this… let’s say you had a service that you are promoting like some specialized Pay Per Click training for example and you only want to sell your expertise to 10 very quick customers that get in fast. That is scarcity by choice because you “choose” not to work with more than 10 people.

These are example of scarcity by choice at work and it’s what you need to understand and learn how to do.

.

How To Use Scarcity In Your Marketing

So then let’s bring this down to our level and have a look at how scarcity could work in promoting a product you are selling. It could be your own product or even an affiliate product.

Let’s say Guru Dave might be promoting a product called Marketing Guru Dave’s “One Click To A Million Dollar Day” training course. The product went on the market for $697 and you decide to promote the product to your list of 1,000 people. What you could say to your list is this…

Buy the product for $697 from my affiliate link and if you are in the first 10 people to order you will get a 1 hour private coaching session on how to market your business on Facebook.

Do you see that? You need to use scarcity by choice as a LEVERAGE tool into your marketing to create a buyers rush or to induce people to buy the product through your affiliate link. Because if someone on your list wants to buy the product they now know that they can get a special bonus from you for purchasing it through your link.

It goes on every time there is a launch, and if you are aware of it you will pick up some great ideas on how to market your business or products. Scarcity will give you LEVERAGE in your sales process to help leverage people into making a decision NOW rather than later.

And that’s it, that is how you can use scarcity in marketing, especially in an electronic format.

Scarcity is a known marketing method designed to bring on a buyers rush or to induce people to buy FROM YOU specifically. It’s NOT a CON job, unless you break your word and sell more than you actually said you would. It’s a very powerful marketing tactic designed to put more money in your pocket.

And there you have it. I hope that makes sense, and if you have taken objection to scarcity being used in the past by someone then please drop me a note below. I would love to hear your feedback.

Have a great day, week, month, year… life!

.

So whats the big deal about using a blog in your marketing then?

I just wanted to write a quick post here for my readers who are blogging right now or thinking of using a blog in their marketing.

There is no doubt that a blog can assist your online business, but I find that most new people really don’t understand fully what a blog can do for you.

So to assist you in getting started, here is a bullet list of the type of things you can expect from blogging…

.

Branding - As a blogger you will be respected more as a leader and an authority in your niche which goes a long way to branding you as a person who has the knowledge and value to help others (crucial)

Lead Generation - Having a blog is a great tool to help you with lead generation. You will be surprised at the amount of people who first visit my blog here and then click through to my capture page and optin

Show Case - Your blog is a great place to showcase your ability and knowledge in your niche. When someone is researching your opportunity or researching whether or not they would like to work with you, one of the first places they will look is on your blog to find out if you really have “the goods” or not

Hub – your blog becomes the central place in your marketing efforts were people are referred to and arrive from around the blogosphere and social media community

Content Syndication - Blogs will help you syndicate your content throughout the social media community. For example, the moment I click the button to publish this post on my blog the content is syndicated (duplicated automatically) on other blogs and sites around the internet

Comments & Interaction – A blog will help you to engage in dialogue (important) with those people who read and comment on your posts. This is a great way to “break the ice” with new people to your blog and begin a relationship (powerful for businesses)

Embedding Content - With a blog it is very easy to embed pictures & videos into your posts on the fly which gives your post more depth and appeal

Retweeting – A lot of people who visit my blog here actually click on the Retweet button at the top and bottom of each post which sends a link for my post out to their Twitters followers. Everyday I get several people doing this from my blog (powerful & viral)

Bookmarking – Your blog posts can easily be bookmarked by your visitors. At the bottom of most blog posts there are tiny graphic icons that visitors can click on that will take the details of your post and bookmark it on a bookmarking site like Digg & Stumbleupon for example

Your History – Visitors to your blog can easily see that you have a history of engaging the social community and can also look back into your history to find out what you have been writing about

RSS – Really Simple Syndication gives your followers the ability to follow your blog by using an RSS reader. An example of this is Google Reader, where you can add someone’s blog feed in there that you are following and the moment they update their blog with a new post the content is syndicated into your reader. This is great if you are following lots of people in your niche as it will save you have to regularly visit their blog to see if they have updated it or not

Product Sales – By including certain product banners on your blog that are relevant to your niche you can easily sell products that you create or affiliate products from your blog. This is great for generating extra income to fund your marketing efforts

Baclinking – having a blog gives you the ability to receive backlinks (links from other blogs) which count as a referral when it comes to search engine rankings. Backlinks also drive traffic to your blog from other blogs (cool)

.

As you can see, having a blog is a very powerful tool to be using in your marketing arsenal that I recommend all online marketers to work with. And they great thing is that they are not hard to work build and work with.

Another great aspect to owning a blog is that you can participate in something called a blog meme.

.

What Is A Blog Meme?

For a better explanation of what a blog meme can do please see Heather C. Stephens excellent blog called Clever Marketing and the post called A Clever Marketing Tip to Get Traffic to Your Blog with a Meme.

In short… blog meme’s are a great way of driving extra traffic back to your blog as well as creating extra exposure and branding for you as a marketer. It’s also very good for SEO and backlinking.

Who Started This Meme?

This meme was started by Ana Hoffman. You can read here post on Blogging here… How Blogging Can Increase Your Lead Generation by 67%

.

Who Else Is Cool…

You might like to check out these cool bloggers for their contributions here…

Jim Yaghi – A very cool and inspiring Google PPC expert

Jonathan Budd – An inspiring guy, half my age, and an incredible online success story

Adam Holland – My mentor and coach

Dez Futak – Doing a great job for a pom

George Fourie – Inspiring

Sonny Lanorias – Also inspiring

Thanks to these cool people for being there.

Comments & thoughts below…

One thing I have discovered over the years is that your confession, or the visualizing and verbalizing that you do inside of yourself, needs to be totally congruent with the direction & path that you are walking.

Simply put, success in life CANNOT come to you while you are speaking words of negativity & doubt over your ability, your choice of career… whatever.

Watch this video to see what I am talking about…

.

.

As you can see from watching this video, success & verbalizing and even visualizing MUST work together to form a perfect synergy of movement toward your chosen goal.

Do you agree with this statement? Do you have confessions that are NOT congruent with your chosen success path?

Put your comments below.

This is a great tip I learned from Robert Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad Poor Dad and the Cashflow Quadrant about success and how to spot opportunities in business.

Robert Kiyosaki discusses many success principles, and this one has stuck with me for many years. Have a look at this video first.

.

.

Something that I have learned in my time as an online marketer is that the more you educate yourself on marketing, leadership, attraction marketing, lead generation and other hot topics, the easier it becomes to spot opportunities & ways that you can begin to generate lucrative income streams.

Simply put, the more you know about this industry the better your chances are of making real income in the long run.

Would you agree with this principle? Do you have examples of something that you have spotted that you have turned into a cash stream?

Your feedback is welcome below.

Do You Have Any Idea What The Real Product In Your MLM Home Business Is?

When discussing home business opportunities I often hear people talking about the products or services their company offers and they speak about them with increased passion. Heck some people even fall in love with their products.

To me… falling in love with your product is a “No No” in this industry (GASP – shock horror). Yes I know that might “weird” some of you out but I will explain this later.

Having a great product that you are proud to introduce to your friends, family and prospects is a valuable thing to have because we really SHOULD be proud of and have a passion for what we are selling.

But I just want to bring you back down to the reality level of what your product really is because knowing what your REAL product is will affect your decision making ability on the next biz op you are presented with. It will also affect HOW you present your opportunity to your prospects.

.

.

You see…

There are actually two types of products for two types of customers in the home business industry that you need to be aware of, and you need to know which category you fall into as a customer.

Consider McDonalds…

Think about the product that McDonalds offers its customers. Hamburgers, fries & drinks… right? Correct… but only as a consumer. McDonalds offers those products to everyday people like you and I at a consumer level.

But what if you were in the market to buy a McDonalds franchise? What’s the product then? It’s the system. The McDonalds system is now the product that we are talking about.

Knowing this changes the whole sales dynamic at work here and this is how it works with your biz op.

So then if you are buying a McDonalds franchise; does the hamburgers, fries & drinks matter? Should this become a consideration in the equation? The answer is yes it matters because without those products you have no system. The consumer product is actually a part of the system, but it’s not ALL of the system.

What About Your Home Business Opportunity

So now how does this work in your home business opportunity? Your product that you are offering and talking about to your prospects are two totally different things when you are talking to someone that is looking for a home business opportunity as opposed to someone that is interested in your products.

Yes your company’s products are vitally important when talking to a consumer but they are less important when talking to a business prospect. They are still important when talking about your system because they form part of your system, but your prospect is going to be much more interested in the system than the product.

To somebody buying a McDonalds burger meal the food is important but to someone else looking at buying a franchise the product is just a means to an end. Your product to somebody looking for a good system is merely just a means to their end.

Here is some startling news for you… what you are really selling in your home business opportunity is a system and the system sells the product for you. If you like, you are selling a mini franchise and that franchise sells products to consumers.

Your system then is a system for turning product into cash. That’s it!

Why Make This Distinction?

Well like I said in the beginning, way too many people fall in love with their products and turn into product geeks and it clouds their thinking when it comes to business building.

People who buy a McDonalds franchise are business builders and people who buy the product are consumers. Do you see the difference? You are looking for business builders first if you want to build a big home business, so don’t muddy the water by falling in love with your product.

The last thing a prospective business builder needs is a product geek.

Comparison…

I remember the first time I heard Robert Kiyosaki say that if your house is your biggest asset you are in trouble. That statement of his caused uproar in many circles, especially with the old school industrial age thinkers who really DID think that their house was their biggest asset.

But it was the truth of that statement that rocked people’s boats. And it’s no different to you with your brilliant product that you are head over heels in love with.

The truth is you need to fall in love with your system first then your product second. I have never been a product geek… to me home business was always about the system.

Don’t get me wrong I have bought great products from network marketing companies but it was never the product that attracted me to the system, it was the system that attracted me to the product.

Do you think someone buying a McDonalds franchise cares more about the product or the system?

Conclusion…

In the end there is really only two things you need to be focused on to build a BIG home business…

1. Market the system that sells the products
2. Teach your team to do the same

So there you go, I hope that demystifies the distinction between product & system and the level of importance you need to place on them.

But I have a few final questions for you…

1. Are you stuck in your home business?
2. Are people leaving your team as fast as others are joining?
3. Are you aware of the attrition rate in downline building?
4. Do you realize how much the internet has changed the home business industry?

The truth is we live in a different world today that what we did in those pre internet days and building a successful home business is not as easy as it used to be.

If you feel that your business isn’t performing as it should then are probably a victim of those changes that have occurred and you need to find out NOW what you need to do about it.

Click on this picture below to download your free copy of Mike Dillard’s Coffee House letter, the shocking truth that is happening to home businesses all over the world.

This report could save you years of wasted time and thousands of dollars spent on your business.

Here is the link…

.

.

Got questions or comments? Please post them below.