Note: Marketing Monday is part of a commitment to post here more often. I made the suggestion of “theme days” to my buddy Piotr and thought I should give it a go as well.

A lot of sales people mistakenly assume they’re also marketers. After all, marketing is just another form of sales, right?

Wrong. Here’s a quick rule of thumb for marketers vs salesmen.

- A marketer is the giant chicken break dancing on the side of the road.
- A salesman is the cute teenage girl who convinces you to buy a larger drink.

I spent several years in electronics sales and, like most sales people, thought Marketing will be easy! I didn’t realize how much psychology goes into priming someone to be receptive for the final pitch. That’s what marketers do. They don’t convince you to buy it. They convince you the product or service looks neat enough to consider. Salesmen meet you at the door, gently guide you to the amazing product and throw in a subtle But wait! There’s more!

Unfortunately, I didn’t realize the catastrophic marketing mistake I’d made until it was too late. I had my site running for over a year, trying to “sell” it via ads and Internet posts. I had modest success, but nothing like my competitors. Why?

I spent too much time selling my product.

As a salesman, my job was to explain, demonstrate and pimp the hell out of every feature of the product. I had to turn the Wow, this is cool into Wow, this does something for me. That doesn’t work for web marketing. On the net, your website (or eBook or super nifty plug-in or unique service) is your storefront. Sure, some people are going to waltz on in because they’re looking for it, but

Any salesman will tell you the best sales come from Wows.

One of my favorite customers – and I have a lot of them – was a guy going on a plane trip. Just a trip across the country, no more than 5 hours all told. His laptop battery wouldn’t last the whole way, he didn’t want to be bored and he wanted a portable DVD player. The company had just run a huge marketing push for our awesome new DVD players, complete with idyllic images of children sitting serenely in the backseat of a luxury minivan, watching Disney movies while lush, green country sped by. He saw the ad somewhere and thought Wow, that looks cool. I need that on my plane trip. If it could shut up a bunch of grade schoolers for a few hours, surely it could keep him entertained.

The DVD players are a little on the large side, similar to an 8″ netbook. Between his behemoth laptop, a cellphone and assorted other carry-on swag, his Wow was starting to waver as the actual size set in. Did he really need something that big just for the plane trip? I had to reup his wow.

Lead with a Wow, but not your best one.

For some customers, the marketing is enough and the salesman simply needs to reaffirm whatever the marketing campaign promised. For others, like mine, the salesman needs to step it up a notch. You always need to be able to move up for these customers, like Mr. Customer and the iPod Video. (Remember when those were new? Ah…the old days of 2006.)

It’s small. It’s light. It holds a whole lot of video. It’s really cool, because you don’t need to bring your DVDs with you. I can’t tell you exactly how many it will hold, but…well, here, just flip through mine. I’ve got a couple seasons of my favorite TV shows, movies for my kids and a bunch of music. Just click here to open that folder. I’ve got a cable over here that lets you hook it up to a TV…

Your marketing will suck if your sales isn’t into it.

Long story short, he bought the damn iPod (and a case, a portable charger, a car charger/transmitter, a TV cable and awesome headphones). He probably went home and bought the software, too.

The entire exchange wouldn’t have gone nearly so well if either of the key factors were missing.

• He thought Wow, that DVD player is cool.
• I thought Wow, this iPod will do something for this guy.

Marketing gets people motivated and interested.

Just like these centered, bold subheadings compel you to read whatever I put here. It really doesn’t matter what they say as long as they grab your attention. They could say something insanely, bizarrely random like Cute, fuzzy penguins love marketing. Sometimes – and that’s a big sometimes – insanely, bizarrely random is just what your company needs. Like this one from McDonald’s, featured on The Wondrous blog.

This ad works on pure shock value. It gets people thinking about it, maybe angry, maybe happy (Damn right you shouldn’t hire those Poles!). Either way, people feel something and are urged to learn more.

And here’s where I failed with my site. I didn’t try to convince people it was cool. I didn’t try to draw people in. I tried to sell to them before they had a chance to be interested in the project. Had I known better, I would have picked the most appealing part, played it up and remembered

Sales gets people to want it.

Interest leads to impulsive clicks but very rarely an impulsive sale. Your sales page should confirm that their interest was right and they should look no further. Even if they don’t buy today, your sales needs to reinforce whatever cool thing your marketing promised so they continue to think about it.

And, when you’ve done all this…

For the love of God,

ask for the damn sale.

I could (and probably will) write an entire series on how important it is to ask for the sale. For now, just remember that people expect prompts. Think about the last uncomfortable exchange you had at a store or restaurant. They usually go something like this.

Salesperson: Welcome to Our Place. How are you?

You: Hi. Good and yourself?

Salesperson: Great! …

You: …

Salesperson: …So…What can I help you with?

You: Oh, yeah…I’m looking for the widget I saw in your catalog.

Until you ask for the sale, your customer will hang in uncomfortable silence limbo, deciding what to do. Market, sell, ask them to buy.

Image Credits

1. Collection Business 1 by arte_ram

2. Hammock Lady standing on Beach by shwizle

3. Brocante 2 by manuruch

4. Gorilla Marketing by GlennPeb