In this video, Hartiverse presents “Distraction Marketing,” a means of getting the attention of consumers and leading them to your website and ultimately to your mailing list.
Attraction marketing is the buzzword most commonly heard due to the concept of the Law of Attraction, but equally noteworthy is the way big brands bring smiles to their prospects’ faces and obtain new customers in the process, a method even under-capitalized start-ups can use.
The video covers in detail how distraction marketing works, citing many real world examples, including many resources to make the process easy and enjoyable. Hartiverse points out that this method is a slow build-up, not a get-rich-quick scheme, but by utilizing your time wisely, this technique has the possibility to bring you success without a lot of high-dollar expenditures that other marketing strategies require.
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Click here to watch the video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Ck_2Uh3UPME
Want to know a secret? There is a way of marketing in play that you should know about. It’s called “Distraction Marketing.”
What Is Distraction Marketing? Let’s differentiate.
You’ve probably heard the buzzword “attraction marketing” the most due to the concept of the Law of Attraction, but have you heard of distraction marketing? What does that even mean? As an internet marketer, you need to know what this type of marketing is, because it is used by the biggest brands out there, and it will likely be one of the most important, profitable tools you have in low-cost online marketing that is highly effective.
First, understand what it is and then learn how to implement it within your own business. Most business owners can find success using this method to help them to develop their online business. It works in any sector, industry or niche. When applied effectively, it is a low-cost, long-term success tool no marketer should go without.
What is it?
The short definition of what distraction marketing is may seem too simple. It is simply a term that means you use the power of the internet, mostly social media, to help distract people from what they were doing and pay attention to you.
To take this to the next level, distraction marketing can be defined as bringing people to you by getting them out of their trance and change their pattern of behavior to favor your message and ultimately your business. The best way to see this is to take a look at the opposite method, the way that most print or offline advertising is done.
In traditional advertising, countless dollars are spent to find the consumer most likely to invest in your product or service. Billboards are placed along freeways for radio stations, for example, since people listen to the radio most often in the car. Bus bench advertisements work the same way. The idea is to catch the eye of the consumer rather than the consumer coming directly to you to fill a need or want in their life.
In distraction marketing, the consumer ignores your competition in favor of coming to you and your product or service because you did something to break their cycle of always going to your competition or ignoring your niche completely. Distraction marketing allows your business to do well since the advertisements are being presented in a manner that catches people’s attention in a way they can’t ignore. Internet marketing is not often about catchy slogans and clever ads, but if it helps you cut through the noise and get noticed, it’s worth investigating. This is how posts go viral. Mastering this can help your business to grow quickly.
The question is: does distraction marketing work? Yes! An example of this is Facebook. Everyone on the web knows that sites like Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat are havens for younger-generation individuals who like to find each other and chat. The trend continues to grow and change every day as more sites pop up and people get distracted from their current faves to check out the new social media. In fact, businesses, politicians, employers, and even seniors are using it as a tool to connect with others. Facebook and its competitors distract people from their normal daily lives, giving them something different to focus on. This tool can be used to help virtually anyone to gain success in getting traffic to their website.
Now let’s talk about how to apply distraction marketing methods to your business.
Any internet marketer can apply the lessons learned to their own internet business. There are three main parts to developing a successful distraction marketing campaign, but the good news is that none of them are difficult or costly. Some can seem overly time-consuming, but we’ll talk more about that towards the end of this presentation.
Let’s explore these three parts and find out how you can put them to use no matter what type of internet marketing business you have.
In short, they are as follows:
- Consumers choose you over your competition and buy your products or services on the web.
- Consumers allow you to contact them.
- You provide consumers with information they can use and benefit from, through email, and keep your business in front of them all the time.
Now let’s focus on the details.
Part 1: Consumers find you.
The first step in the process is to get people to find you online. Remember, with distraction marketing, they are coming to you because your message is louder and more attractive than your competition. So, how do you get more people to find you online?
Website design comes first.
There are several ways to accomplish this. The first step is to have a useful website or blog where you can talk with, work with and interact with your visitors. You will need to ensure it is information-based with a clever gimmick that makes people stick around, a process on the web known as stickiness. Websites like Bored Panda have been doing this for years. Make sure your website tells visitors that you are providing a service or information to them and not a sales ad to convince them to buy, because after your clever distraction on social media, they are already primed to pay attention to you.
Utilize social networking websites.
There are many ways to build a successful distraction marketing campaign. One of the most attractive and enjoyable ways to get your business out there is to talk about it! LOUDLY! Social networking is what it sounds like. It is a method of communicating with others about anything that distracts them from their daily routine.
Most social networking websites were not started to help businesses to grow, but most of them are able to be used this way. You are looking for a way to give people information. Once they have that information, they can then come to you to get what they need. This works in any type of internet niche.
Here are some examples of social networking sites and what to do with them.
First is Facebook. It’s great for meeting, socializing and talking about yourself, your business or anything else. You can connect with thousands of people there.
Second is YouTube. It’s great for informational videos and socializing. Who doesn’t want to watch a few YouTube videos every day? Use them to help market your business indirectly by distracting them with humor or other tantalizing content that makes them want to subscribe to your channel. To help you get started, you can get free content from sites like Pexels and Pixabay.
Third is Twitter. Type in messages, sometimes with a link to an associated resource you control. Make sure your website is listed in your profile. Network and build up the number of Twitter users you are following and at least some of them will follow you back. Be careful not to suffer from tweet burnout, though. Tweeting can be addictive but highly beneficial, once you’ve built a successful following there. Wendy’s and McDonald’s are two brands that have gone out of their way to tweet at people and say outlandish things, usually for the comedic value of the comment. They don’t sell hamburgers online, but their omnipresence on Twitter ensures that people who follow them will remember them the next time they want to select a quick-service restaurant. This is distraction marketing at its finest.
There are many, many more websites that can be used like this. The key is to really use those where you think the best results can be found, but also where you find yourself enjoying the experience.
To find more of these social networking websites, visit the Wikipedia page called “List of social networking websites.”
There is no way that you can reasonably maintain a presence on all of these websites. Instead, find one, two, or three to really dive into and to work with. Hire a social media manager to help you keep up with regular content posts at each site if you are short on time to spend networking. Sites such as Upwork are good places to contract with a professional to manage your social media for a reasonable price. Consistency is key to showing you’re serious about your presence on your chosen sites, and to make the sites’ algorithms favor your posts, which is why posting as often as reasonably possible is important.
Now let’s talk about the necessity of building a network.
While it is essential for individuals to build a network of people to get traffic to their website, it is an area where marketers often fail. For example, let’s say you join Instagram, put up a few pictures, post your email contact information and website link and then don’t do much else. No one is going to find you that can help you to build your business. Successful Instagram influencers post constantly, and the more flamboyant the content, the better the distraction.
You need to network and build a sizable following or allow others to find you on any of these websites by providing concise yet useful information in a way that makes your audience smile and engage with you. The fact is, you have to get out there and really make your presence known. Here are some tips to make this possible.
For one, use your profile!
This is one of the key tools you have to get people back to your website. Be sure to use keywords you would associate with your business in your profile, but make it informal. There is no room for sales here.
Socialize with others.
Find others at websites, usually forums, that share something in common with you and build a network with them. For example, you may be promoting a wellness product and you personally use your own product. When you join the website, promote yourself as a new member first and start letting people get to know you. Then later you will have the clout to mention your wellness product. Most forums have requirements of a certain number of posts, 15 is common, before you can add a signature line with your website address. Jumping right in as a new member and mentioning your product upfront is a good way to get banned from forums. Instead, ease your way into it organically and it won’t seem contrived. Forum posts are often times cataloged in search engines such as Google, so once you are able to include your link in your signature, it will appear on all your posts, and search engines will pick up on this and follow your link back to your website.
Build a network from your friend’s networks.
Let’s say you use your email contacts and locate them on your favorite social sites. That’s great. Don’t stop there. Befriend not just these individuals but also their friends, too. Keep going, building a network for yourself the whole time. But don’t overdo this step. People can get suspicious that you’re only their friend to harvest their friends list, which is a counter-productive activity and could get you unfriended and bad-mouthed, because people notice this when it’s done to excess.
There are many ways to build a network using social media. The key is to keep working at it and enjoying the process. Over time, people come to your website to find out what you have to offer. This gets them interested and they buy from you. The process works like this many times over and at the end of the day, you have drawn people to you without talking too much about your business.
Part 2: Getting permission to communicate.
The next step in the process of using distraction marketing to your advantage is to get people to let you talk to them. Due to laws governing electronic communications such as spam, it has become very important for you to be sure you stay on the right side of the law.
As an internet marketer, you need to have the permission of a consumer, client or website visitor to send them any form of communication other than direct communication, such as through a blog comment.
Why should you do this, you may be asking. As part of the process of developing a successful internet marketing business, you need to get your product or service in front of the client. As you will see in Part 3, this is the key to your success in selling.
There are many ways that this can be done. The bottom line is that it has to be done. You want those that find you on the web to come to your website and a lead capture page, for example. This way, you are able to get their permission to send them more information.
You can use the Contact Us page on your website or a newsletter signup box on your home page to get people’s permission to email them. A successful example of this is Luke Rudkowski of We Are Change. He uses an email signup on his home page to send out newsletters. He also uses the opportunity to solicit memberships in exchange for unfiltered content he can’t post anymore on social media, including Facebook and YouTube, where he maintains a large presence.
What happens is simple:
Individuals find your information on the web.
They follow it to your website’s lead capture page.
They sign up when they arrive there.
Now you have a lead to sell to, market to or otherwise use.
Advertise to them.
Part 3: Provide fun, informative emails to the customer. The Amazon service called Woot does this very effectively with their Monkey Chat feature at the end of most emails. Cartoons of the monkeys are also used throughout their emails as a way to make it fun to look at the stuff Woot is trying to sell you.
This is where the final part of the three-part process of using distraction marketing comes in. Take the information and resources that you have worked so hard to develop and make them into something that’s going to turn a profit for you and make it fun for the consumer in the process.
This process may seem like it is long and has a lot of work to it, but it’s necessary to make your message stand out. Internet marketing is a slow build-up, not a get-rich-quick scheme. But if you do it right, you are likely to start making money from distraction marketing right from the beginning of the process.
One of the keys to building a successful distraction marketing plan is not to be overly salesy. Everything and anything that you do should be done based on subtle sales information combined with interesting graphics, funny text, mascots or similar techniques. Remember: the circus act is the distraction, but ultimately you are providing information to the client. You are not hard selling what you have on offer. This is why it is called distraction marketing. The consumer is distracted from what they were previously doing to look at you and give them valuable information and tools to use in the process.
Don’t fail on that point: informational posting is key. Keep it light-hearted, inspirational, or weird so that people will pay attention to your message. An example of this is the Dr. Squatch commercials for their all-natural bar soaps for men. The company effectively uses a quirky sense of humor to make people want their product.
Next, develop a plan.
As part of the process of using the permissions given to you by those who have visited your website, you will need a plan. The plan is quite specific. You need to send emails to those who are on your list that allow them to gain something and learn something. You need to have a plan in place so that you can be professional while still getting people to your website at the same time.
In this form of distraction marketing, you are distracting people from whatever they were looking at previously and pay attention to you instead, and then visit your website. Blendtec was a master of distraction marketing with their “Will it blend” series of hilarious videos, which resulted in massive sales of their blenders. They used humor to demonstrate their product. They made their audience think, “Hey, this is great. This is just what I need.” Then they were directed to the Blendtec website where they could make a purchase.
To make sure this happens for your product or service, you need to innovate your thinking about how to find an angle that gets people’s attention. Think about how successful “Flo” has been in selling Progressive insurance or the Geico gecko. Ensure that your emails are equally well-received and that they have the best information they can offer to the reader. This way, your readers are more likely to visit your website. Branding your product or service in this way makes people think of you fondly and associate you with your product in a fun way. Who would have thought that a gecko with an Aussie accent could sell so much insurance?
Now let’s talk about constructing emails.
The first step in the process is to develop a newsletter or other email communication with them. It doesn’t matter what you call it. Rather, it matters what’s in it. Here are some examples of quality content to provide to your readers.
Provide informational articles.
Your clients want to read something helpful to them. They want to read something that teaches them something. For example, let’s say you are selling an informational product on grilling. In your email message to your readers, you write about entertaining ways to use your grill. This provides them with some type of information while making them enthusiastic about buying a grill from you. It worked for George Foreman!
Make your subject line effective.
A common problem that many people have when using any form of email marketing is that they just do not get their readers to open up the email. How can you do well if the reader is not even reading what you have to offer? Even news agencies like UPI with nothing obvious to sell use this technique. Use your subject line as a tool. In the grill example, the subject line could be, “What causes grilling fever and what you can do about it.” There is no such thing as grilling fever, but it distracts the eye from the other messages and could result in your prospects opening the email to see what you’re talking about. Without a sufficient open rate, your email contents don’t matter, so pay close attention to your subject lines.
Make your email personal.
If you have ever opened up an email and read it knowing that they were just selling something, chances are good the information was a simple canned response with little or no value. That’s boring and no one needs more boredom in their life. Use the reader’s name. Be personal and witty, yet professional at the same time.
Don’t overdo it with graphics, but make sure you have some.
Another problem with email marketing like this is that marketers forget that people looking at email are in a visual mode of learning. You have seconds to impress your reader and get them to actually read the email you have sent. If you have only text, they will likely close the email and move on long before actually seeing what you were going to talk about. Going back to the Woot example, they put their Monkey Chat feature at the end of the email so that readers are forced to scroll through the items for sale to get to the reward at the end. In the meantime, one of the products advertised may spark interest in clicking through the image link to get more information about it at the Woot website and possibly make a purchase. Are you starting to see the power of distraction marketing?
Next on your list of tasks is to tell your reader what to do.
Perhaps the most important aspect of any email used like this is that it has to provide your readers with a way of reacting to what you have sent. Tell them what to do or what they can do to learn more. Give them the link to follow that takes them to the answers to their questions. Using the previous example, after entertaining them with your grilling fever message, follow up with a link that takes the individual to your grilling website. The link may read, “Finally, there is help for any of these causes of grilling fever.” It’s fun, it’s entertaining, and it gets people to click. You can also make an FAQ page on your website with crowdsourced questions for you to answer. Sites such as Google provide this information at the bottom of the first search page in a section called Related Searches or sometimes it comes up as People Also Asked. That’s a hot tip for finding out what’s on people’s minds in relation to your chosen keyword phrase.
Remember, distraction marketing is only as successful as you make it. If you only invest the minimum effort in it, especially in writing emails, chances are good you will get very little from it. If you can’t think of something witty to say, hire a freelancer on a site such as Fiverr to come up with some entertaining talking points you can use to produce a quality, highly effective email that is sent to your readers, always making sure to focus on the subject line first.
Now let’s talk about what to send in emails, in case you are still unsure of what you can do with your emails. Here are a few more ideas to work with. Share information on the topic you have a passion about, hopefully related to your website. Share a good book, informational product or other item that in some way relates to your business or something you can tie into by bridging from one topic to your target demographic. Mark Jeftovic does this very effectively with his weekly email series called the “Axis of Easy.” He publishes news from the world of technology and policy with links back to his website where he sells domain names and web hosting. He also wrote a book and follows the podcast circuit, and on each show he is given the opportunity to pitch his website. That’s very powerful.
Another idea is to share live event information. Perhaps you are doing an educational seminar or a zoom meeting or webinar and want to invite your readers to come to your website to attend. Perhaps you are running a sale and you wish to provide your readers with information regarding it. Perhaps you are providing some recorded training and want to share the details with your list.
That’s all it takes to get the email going. An effective campaign gets people back to your website. In fact, distraction marketing can work in many ways to gain you resources, including higher sales potential. Take the time to put distraction marketing in place and you will see traffic to your website come in from a variety of sources. You are likely to see your sales go up as long as you have provided your readers with the helpful tools and resources they need to make wise decisions while keeping them entertained.
If you are not sure if it can work for you, consider the paradigm of traditional sales mechanisms. You could pay a heavily trafficked website for an ad in the thousands-of-dollars range and hope to get enough readers back to your website. If your prospects have ad blockers turned on, they’ll never even see the ad. Or, you can invest your time, not your money, in getting quality traffic that is already interested in you! Do some brainstorming and come up with as many entertaining ideas you can think of. It doesn’t matter how wacky or bizarre they are. Imagine the board room conversation when the Geico gecko was first introduced. It must have seemed bizarre at first, but now the gecko is a household name. If you keep at it, you are likely to come up with some actionable ideas to distract people from what they were doing and pay attention to your message too.
Distraction marketing is the way forward. Hopefully you found this video interesting. Please hit that thumbs up and subscribe with notifications turned on. Use the comments section to share your own marketing success stories. Bye for now!
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