How Does It Work?
BrandMyBooks.com combines the power of viral marketing with the evidence-based research on the psychology of persuasion as outlined in Robert Cialdini's book
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, to help businesses, non-profit organizations, schools and parent-teacher groups develop a marketing plan that builds a positive image for their business or group and a strong rapport with existing and potential clients, donors, volunteers and other target groups. This phenomenal combination is helping businesses and organizations all over the country to move their marketing to new levels of success!
The BrandMyBooks.com concept incorporates in a natural and positive way four of the six tools for influence outlined by Cialdini, dovetailing viral marketing into the mix for a synergistic effect that is launching businesses far beyond what they formerly thought possible with such little time, effort and investment!
The BrandMyBooks.com marketing system provides you with an ongoing supply of useful and valuble branded gifts to give away to your client base and potential clients in a format that allows them to pass the gifts along to their contacts and associates, expanding your market and maximizing your marketing efforts.
In addition, the natural consequence of giving away these branded books throughout the year is that several of the powerful tools taught by Cialdini are naturally activated, creating a more positive relationship with and environment for your clients and further strengthening your image and rapport.
One word of caution-- It is critical to remember that these steps must be done honestly and with the intent to assist the client and never, ever used to exploit the target market! As Cialdini points out, "[businesses] who play fairly by the rules of shortcut response [tools of persuasion] . . . are our allies in an efficient and adaptive process of exchange." While it is highly effective to use the tools of influence within an honest and helpful context, to falsify, counterfeit, or misrepresent the evidence that naturally triggers a persons shortcut responses is dishonest and will be counterproductive in the end. As Dave Butler, CEO of BzzAgent, a leading industry firm insisted, honesty is central to the survival of a viral marketing campaign.
So, here are the four tools that the BrandMyBooks.com marketing system employs:
- Reciprocation, or what I prefer to call 'The Giving Factor'
The core of BrandMyBooks.com is the giving of gifts-- gifts for birthdays and holidays, acknowledgement of special occasions, recognizing outstanding achievement and excellent service. BrandMyBooks.com allows you to gather a large collection of 'give aways' to pass along to your customers and clients, employees and volunteers, partners and potential clients at a very minimal cost. While your intent in giving out the books is not in expectation of getting something in return, the rule of reciprocity triggers the desire in the recipient of the gift to return the kindness. Your gift giving will automatically activate the other persons desire to try to repay, in kind, what was provided to them.
Think about the last time you received something as simple as a kind gesture or smile from someone. You immediately felt compelled to respond in kind-- smile back, do something to assist them, give them a gift. Even if your customers do not need your product themselves at the moment, they will be compelled to repay the kindness and will be more likely to pass your business information along to a friend who might be in the market for your product, along with their recommendation. They will also be more likely to remember you when they are in the market for your product and will be anxious to reciprocate the kindness by bringing you their business.
In summary-- while you do not send out the ebooks expecting anything in return, as you develop an attitude of giving and assisting your client base it will come back to you in positive ways. BrandMyBooks.com makes it possible to give meaningful and uself gifts regularly throughout the year with very little cost.
Cialdini cites a plethora of research showing that we prefer to say 'yes' to the requests of those we know and like. Interestingly, we do this without even realizing that the 'likeability' factor is playing any role in our behavior. As you distribute the BrandMyBooks.com ebooks, book reviews and useful articles to your mailing lists you will automatically increase your own 'likeabilty' factor in several ways.
Whether we realize it or not, research shows that we are drawn in by
physical attractiveness. While your own physical attractiveness does not play a role in the BrandMyBooks.com marketing system, the attractive books themselves activate the 'likeability' factor. The vivid covers and professional format are attractive to those receiving them, and that attractiveness is then associated with the one giving the gift and the business or organization they represent.
In addition, the gifts increase the
'familiarity' factor, another strong indicator of likeability according to Cialdini, citing a number of fascinating examples. One of the most compelling examples involves a political phenomena where a candidate that was trailing significantly in the polls was able to pull off a victory simply by changing his name just prior to the vote. He did this by strategically changing his name to Brown, a familiar name in that area. By doing so he picked up the votes of many who voted for him based solely on name familiarity even though they didn't know him, and won his bid for office. By sending out regular gifts and communication, you increase familiarity among your client base for you and your product. Then, incorporating the viral marketing factor, you continue to reach a much larger audience and begin to build that familiarity with people you don't even know directly!
Another factor accomplished by BrandMyBooks.com is
conditioning and association. Your clientele will begin to associate you with quality, thoughtfulness, and a legacy of giving. These all invoke positive emotions that your clientele will begin to associate with you, moving them closer to a position of helping you in whatever way they are able to, whether that includes personal purchases, referrals, or both.
Another element of the 'likeability factor' that the BrandMyBooks.com products capitalize on expands beyond your own mailing list and contacts. A growing number of charity organizatons, understanding the power of the 'likeability factor' in getting people to say yes, recruit volunteers to canvass for donations in their own neighborhoods. Many businesses have also incorporated standard referral systems into their marketing plans, knowing that the friend doesn't even have to be present to exert influence. Frequently, just the mention of their name as a referral is enough to activate the likeability factor. How does this apply to you and the BrandMyBook.com marketing system? As you send out valuable and meaningful ebooks to your own mailing list, they will then forward the gifts on to their contacts who are also interested in the same topics or books. With your logo and message branded to the book, your personal contacts will be indirectly recommending your business and products to those in their own circle of influence. Again, viral marketing and the psychology of influence converging to achieve explosive results for your business.
- Commitment and Consistency
Like the other tools for influence, this tool lies deep within us, quietly and without detection controlling our behavior and choices. The rule of commitment and consistency is, quite simply, our desire to remain consistent with what we have already done. The research on this is fascinating and no doubt you could find many examples from your own life where you were compelled to take a certain action simply because you had already declared in some way your belief in that particular direction.
Commitment and consistency comes into play in two basic ways in the BrandMyBooks.com marketing system. First, those receiving the gift will most likely acknowledge your communication with a thank you and statement about how they feel about the book or how they intend to use it. They may even make direct comments about you and your business. Either way, they have now interacted with you, in a positive way, and will be more likely to continue along that path when another opportunity arises. In addition, research shows that once a person has made a purchase or interacted with something, to any degree, they are far more likely to take the next step. Just getting the potential client to interact with your business in even the slightest way, even as simple as reading the ebook or report that you have sent, or acknowleding receipt of the gift, will put them on a path to further interactions with your company in the future, and they will be more committed to remain on that path as time goes, increasing the likelihood of future purchases and business referrals.
This particular tool has a much smaller impact in the BrandMyBooks.com marketing system than those mentioned previously, and it is not an automatice part of the system. However, if this factor applies to your business we will help you incorporate reports, articles, or book reviews that carry the power of 'authority' and can thus activate the natural tendency to directed deference.
The other two tools of influence mentioned by Cialdini can be incorporated into your specific BrandMyBooks.com marketing program if appropriate. If your company has been around long enough to, and indeed possesses adequate evidence of
social proof, we will help you to incorporate that into your ebooks.
The 6th tool- the rule of
scarcity- is one that must be monitored carefully and implemented honestly and with great caution. While it is very effective, it is also very easy to use this tool to exploit, which will not serve anyone's highest purpose. If, indeed, there is an element of scarcity to your product, or there could be an honest element of scarcity, we will help you to incorporate this into your BrandMyBooks.com marketing plan.
Now-- Add to these very effective tools of persuasion the phenomena of viral marketing and you have a combination that is guaranteed to expand your business in a positively explosive way!!
Viral marketing is a powerful theory. It is designed to harness the strongest of all consumer triggers- the personal recommendation, making it not only relatively inexpensive, but also more believable than other traditional marketing forms.
In the age of the internet it has become possible to include consumers in the marketing process and let them spread the word to global millions. Indeed, viral marketing has become the 'Next Big Thing'.
Viral marketing, by definition, is a marketing phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message. It depends on a high pass-along rate from person to person. If a large percentage of recipients forward something to a large number of friends, the overall growth snowballs very quickly. Hotmail has been widely cited as the first example of viral marketing, which was the main contributor to their overwhelming success from the beginning.
This type of advertising has been called several things- viral, buzz, customer satisfaction, word of mouth. Whatever word a person chooses to use- the concept is both effective and explosive. Viral marketing allows businesses to take advantage of the speed at which information moves today and the power that can come from people passing on their thoughts, recommendations and referrals of products and services. Big businesses have been capitalizing on the relatively new techniques for several years. BrandMyBooks.com now makes it possible for businesses of all sizes to benefit from the explosive results of viral marketing and to incorporate this vital element into their core marketing plans in order to compete and remain competitive.
Research has shown that a smart viral advertising campaign can increase exposure and results by 10 times that of traditional advertising. BrandMyBooks.com, by combining these powerful tools, can help you:
- Create a sustainable flow of high-quality leads and customers
- Establish a productive and ongoing viral marketing channel
- Leverage the marketing power and influence of consumer social networks
- Establish a private-label, online social environment for effective brand-building
- Use existing assets to create new customers, leads, and brand influencers
Keep in mind that industry experts are quick to caution that not all attention is created equal. It is important, when designing a viral marketing campaign, to create a product and system that will maximize positive buzz and eliminate the negative.
BrandMyBooks.com is one of the simplest and most effective ways to do just that.
Utilizing our expertise in marketing, the internet and how to create a buzz, we will be able to assist you in developing a marketing plan that will capitalize on the strengths of your business or organization, eliminate the negative, and create an effective campaign that will move you to the next level of success.
Not only is the BrandMyBooks.com approach relatively inexpensive, it can also be more effective and more believable than standard marketing vehicles.
As you can see from the above discussion, BrandMyBooks.com is a powerful, yet simple way to expand your business in 2008.
In fact, it is deceptively simple. Let us help you:
- Create a gift that will be so meaningful and worthwhile to your target audience that they will be compelled to pass it on to everyone in their address book,
- brand it with your personalized message and logo,
- utilize email to put it in the hands of your current customer-base and let them create a viral effect as they pass it on to their friends and associates.
It's Just That EASY!!
To see more specific details on what BrandMyBooks.com can offer your specific organization:
Be sure to
REGISTER to receive a FREE Report on viral marketing.
Contact us at
Info@BrandMyBooks.com if you have any additional questions.
