The Absolute Best Audience Mindset Marketers Should be Actively Developing
Suzanna "The Challenge Queen" Fitzgerald
Professional Content Writer and Marketing Strategist | Specializing in Crafting Your Stories into Irresistible Online Marketing Blueprints
Finally, it’s time!?Time to discover that perfect audience mindset that will help you grow your business, expand your reach, and make each and every marketing campaign more powerful and yield better results.
This is the mindset that you not only want to attract in your prospects, but that you want to actively develop over time.
3 Basic Audience Mindsets
We’ve spent some time together over the last few weeks discovering the fact that there are only three real mindsets that any member of your marketing audience will be in at any given time, and we’ve gone in-depth on two of them:
1.?????The most confusing and paradoxical mindset (raccoon prospects – who aren’t so bad!)
2.?????And the most dangerous audience mindset (magpies – who can actually cost you heavily in time, money, and even in the quality of your professional reputation)?
Lessons from Feeding Horses
As a girl growing up on a ranch I had a good number of chores, and one of them was to feed my Dad’s three saddle horses.?This was hands-down my favorite one, partly because (just like any pre-teen girl) I had a massive crush on all horses, and partly because it was good, clean entertainment.
Each of the three horses had their own distinctive personality:
Every morning I’d pour feed into their individual “troughs” (really a couple of old tractor tires cut open on the top and nailed to a big piece of plywood).?Then I’d finally open the gate.
With a whinny and a snort the three horses – normally just as lazy and slow-moving as anything else under the hot Arizona sun – would stampede to the feed!
Eager, but Not Crazy
I loved to sit on the top board of the fence and watch them eat, because despite their very different personalities, they'd all start eating the same way. After the mad rush to get to their individual feed troughs, they'd stop.
Then, they'd cautiously circle the trough. Probably checking for rattlesnakes.
Then, no matter how desperately they wanted that sweet molasses feed, they'd stand as far back from the trough as they could manage, and stretch their long necks out to capacity.
With their noses just over the rim of the trough, each one would snort, snuffle, and delicately lip at the top grains. Gradually, as the feed didn't turn into poison or bite them, they'd shuffle their massive front hooves forward, and take a nibble, then a proper bite.
Within ten minutes, there wasn't a scrap of grain left in the corral.
Eagerness Balanced with Reasonable Caution is Healthy
No matter how many times I fed those same three horses in the same three troughs with the same molasses sweet feed, they'd do the same thing. Every. Single. Time. Sometimes they were really hungry, and sometimes they could've cared less.
*On a really good grass summer I sometimes had to drag the half-full feed troughs back under the shelter of the shed, and then drag it out again the next morning. If they weren't hungry, they wouldn't finish!
But they were always eager to get to the feed, and always cautious about taking the first bite.
Horse Prospects Won't Guru-ize You
Unlike magpies, horse prospects won't grab up what you're offering at face value, and then immediately lose interest (or become violently dissatisfied!)
Horse prospects have the built-in caution that will help you protect them from too much of you. It doesn't matter what you're selling, or why, not every member of your audience will be best - or even well - served by buying every single product, service, or program.
领英推荐
No matter how wonderful they think you are, horses won't take everything you offer...not because they don't value it, but because they have a good view of what they need.
Which saves you time and effort on the front-end, where you don't have to worry about selling so hard...and it saves you a lot of time and frustration on the back-end, because horse prospects aren't likely to return products or change their minds about programs.
Horse Prospects Are Loyal & Forgiving
Unlike raccoon prospects, who're cautious to the point of paranoia and must be coaxed, tempted, and satisfied with a great deal of time and effort every time you want to sell them something...horse prospects will come back to your marketing efforts of their own free will.
Usually my childhood chore of feeding the saddle horses was because my Dad needed them in the pen so he could ride them. And sometimes that involved long, hard days for those faithful horses.
But horses are loyal.
They were happy to come back every day, no matter how many times that required being saddled up and ridden by grumpy cowboys.
Horses are also remarkably forgiving.
A favorite trick of my Dad's when he needed a horse and they weren't penned was to go out to the pasture.
The horses would trot up to within a reasonable distance - always curious and reasonably friendly - and my Dad would walk towards the one he wanted, talking in his deep, gentle voice. The horse's ears would swivel forward, and my Dad would take off his dirty, sweaty, beat-up old Stetson and hold it out.
The horse would perform the long-neck approach ritual, curious if there was a treat.
There never was, of course. Just a dirty old hat. But the horse would act just like the hat was sweet feed, and slowly let his neck shorten as my dad carefully put a bridle on. And when the day's work was over, the horse would get a treat, just to make sure that the old hat trick would work the next time.
Treat Your Horse Prospects WELL!
Long-neck horses are the easiest, best, and most valuable audience members you'll ever have. Some will come to you as natural horses, with their caution built in and their forgiveness ready. Others will be raccoons or magpies who will have to be persuaded and cossetted and convinced - even trained - to take on the behavior of a long-neck horse.
But no matter what, once you have a long-neck horse in your audience, TREAT THEM WELL!
There's no way to emphasize that enough.
Horses will come back to you, year after year, promotion after promotion:
And they'll leave what they don't need alone of their own free will - which will help you protect yourself against dissatisfied customers and negative reviews.
Become an Insider to Discover the Best Way to Turn Your Audience into a Herd of Long-Neck Horses
For my email subscribers only I'll be sharing methods to transform raccoon and magpie prospects into the long-neck horses that you really want.
In order to find out what those methods are, please?subscribe?to?the email version of?the Marketing by Listening?newsletter. You get great content here, but you get insider information (most especially useful, hands-on, fix-it tips) in the email version, which will come out in a week.
*If?you subscribe, please be patient! I have the promise of a FREE sign-up gift, but that gift's still in the shop. I expect about another 1-2 weeks to get it finished, and all newsletter subscribers will get it in an issue once it's ready.