"The Art of War" by Sun Tzu: Ancient Lessons in Modern Marketing

Sun Tze was a Chinese military general who wrote the definitive text on military conflict in 600 BC. The book is still required reading at West Point and all other military academies.

The principles set forth by Sun Tzu can be seen in practice in military conflicts throughout history. Dwight Eisenhower employed Sun Tze’s use of deception to make D-Day a success.  

Robert E. Lee, perhaps the most skilled military tactician in American history, lost the Battle of Gettysburg because he failed to follow one of Sun Tzu’s basic principles. So what does all of this ancient history have to do with marketing?

Marketing and Warfare

There are many similarities between marketing and warfare, though marketing eliminates the guns, grapeshot and lethal war axes, thankfully.

Both marketing and warfare involve competition between two groups or entities that seek the same objective.

Both marketing and warfare involve control of space. In warfare, the space is usually land. In marketing, it’s the retailers’ service areas – areas to conquer and dominate, beating the competition and holding your position in the marketplace when a competitor moves in one town over.

That’s why I recommend every hearing aid retailer read The Art of War by Sun Tze. Just change the word “war” for “marketing” to learn to employ effective tactics that you can apply in growing your business.

Here are just a few examples of what I’ve learned reading and re-reading this tome. And by applying these tactics to marketing to marketing my hearing aid stores, I’ve built numerous successful businesses over the years using advice from a Chinese general written 2600 years ago.

The winning general knows what’s required for victory, then attacks. The losing general attacks, then seeks victory. 

The Art of War, Sun Tze

Translation? In marketing, you must know what’s required for success before launching any type of marketing strategy or campaign. You must gather information and develop a plan based on your understanding of what’s required for success within your marketing arena.

Those retail outlet owners who launch a campaign and then seek victory have no plan in place. They market without understanding what’s required for success. And so, their marketing and promotion dollars are frittered away as the business owner looks for signs of success (victory).

Learn this lesson and apply it in all of your marketing efforts. Know what it will take to succeed before you launch (attack).

Use the resources of others to your advantage.

The Art of War, Sun Tze

This is the basis of guerrilla warfare, so successful in numerous battles and conflicts during the 20^th century.

There are numerous resources available to you. These resources “belong” to someone else but you can use them to benefit your hearing aid business and, of course, more people within your community.

For example, when a local community group sponsors a health fair for seniors in your community, participation will improve your business and, at the same time, the quality of life for those individuals you identify as having hearing loss. You use the health fair as a forum to present your store’s contribution to the health and welfare of the neighborhood.

If you employ on-line marketing, and you most certainly should, you employ the assets of numerous websites – Linkedin, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, social bookmarking sites like Digg, Reddit and Stumbleupon. You can create numerous blogs. All of these on-line strategies are (1) free advertising and (2) employ the assets of others to your advantage – legally!

The fact is, these networking websites want you to take advantage of them so get on board and launch a guerrilla marketing campaign using the assets of others.

The winning general must think like a cobra.

The Art of War, Sun Tze 

When attacked, cobras are quick, nimble and agile. When the head is attacked, the tail twists around and joins in the attack. One part of the cobra protects another.

Translated into marketing terms? Your marketing must be flexible, like a cobra. It must be adaptable. You must move quickly and with agility with your marketing, changing it all the time to suit current market conditions.

Like the cobra, all of your marketing efforts should work in synch, creating a more powerful impact.

And you must never take your eyes off the competition. Follow their every move. How are they advertising? What marketing tactics do they employ? Learn from the tactics of the competition. React to it quickly.

For example, if the new hearing aid retailer in town starts running local spots on cable, call the cable company and counter those ads with a campaign of your own. Learn from the competition by staying focused on the competition.

“The Art of War” by Sun Tze should be required reading for every small hearing aid practitioner – the one making the marketing decisions. The book is made up of 13 chapters, each focusing on a particular aspect of warfare.

Read it. Then apply the principles this military genius puts forth in your marketing.

These are time-tested strategies that work whether you’re fighting a major military battle or fighting to maintain market share within your sales territory.

 

Learn from the master. Learn to achieve victory…er, I mean success at hearingtutor.com.

Using Direct Mail To Drive Store Traffic

Your Graphic Artist Will Point You To a Low-Cost Printer

Direct mail – post cards, self-mailers, letters, brochures, aka junk mail – has always been a staple of the hearing aid practitioners’ marketing effort. Some of these mailings really pull in traffic while others don’t even pay for themselves – at least right away. 

So, what can you do to improve the pull of your direct mail campaigns. A few things come to mind based on my own successes and failures. Oh, and BTW, those failures? Yeah, they’re expensive. So, get the most for your indicia.

Start With the Mailing List

If your beautifully written prose is being mailed outside your service region or to kids under 12-years-old, you’re wasting time and money. The list – your Golden List – may take some time to develop.

If you’ve never done a direct mail campaign, it starts with a list house – a company with giant databases loaded with names, addresses, telephone numbers and other personal data. You can conduct searches by everything from annual household income to number of geriatrics within the home.

Big Brother isn’t watching. LOTS of Big Brothers are watching and collecting data on the buying habits and lifestyle habits in your household and millions of other homes just like yours.

So, step one is to eliminate all addresses outside certain zip codes. In other words, pick geo-specific regions within an easy drive to one of your retail outlets.

Step two: target areas where wealthy people live – zip codes of the best towns in your area. These population centers (1) have the resources to purchase hearing aids and (2) are more likely to address a hearing loss with a hearing aid purchase.

Step three: Check the currency of the list. I still get junk mail addressed to my mother-in-law who died in 1993! And some sucker paid 50 cents for that address. You don’t want just any 25,000 mailing addresses – you want people who still live at those addresses. Current information.

Step four: Seed the mailing list. Add a couple of friends’ names to the list as a check that the mail is getting through. We’ve all heard horror stories of entire catalogs disappearing before delivery and the business owner who mailed those catalogs is just plain out of luck.

A reputable list house guarantees the quality of the data it sells.

Next, the Mailer Itself

Have your mailer professionally designed by a graphic artist with the text written by a proven sales copy writer. You can find these creative types all over the web. Try Elance.com. oDesk.com and Guru.com for starters.

Think about the printing costs. Obviously, a straight black-and white letter will cost less to print but, if it has to be folded and slipped into an envelop, that extra step may cost more.

A one-color mailer is just that – it’s black-and white with one additional color. It’s a little more expensive but it also creates the illusion that the mailer is more colorful than it actually is.

The most expensive design is the four-color mailer. This is the full color mailer most of us are used to seeing. If the mailer includes photos, for example, four-color is a must. But, if you’re sending out a professional letter, black-and-white is expected.

BTW, the big box stores that sell office supplies can print up thousands of b&w to full-color mailers at a very low cost.

Postage

Yep, the PO ain’t delivering your mailer free.

Two ways to go, here. You can visit your local postmaster and purchase what’s called an indicia – that little bulk mail symbol you see in the upper right hand corner. The indicia is printed directly on the mailer making things simple.

Or, you can purchase bulk mail stamps. This is actually a good idea if you’re going to do mail blasts in different test markets. No additional indicia required.

Test Market

Which mailer pulls in the most store traffic?

What zip codes deliver the lowest CPS – cost per sale?

Does the letter drive more traffic than a post card?

You won't know until you do a little test marketing. With each test mailing you do, track results with absolute precision. The goal?

To develop the Golden List – the best list with the best prospects at the lowest per unit cost of delivery.

Conducting simple A/B tests over a period of several months will give you the empirical data required to start refining your mailing list.

Project Management

You can hire a local ad agency to do all this leg work but you’ll pay for that leg work. There’s nothing in this list that you and/or an administrative assistant can’t do in-house.

Your graphic artist will be able to recommend a printer who’ll do a short run for cheap. So, use all of your company assets and save on your direct mail campaign.

You may not WANT to do all of these chores but you’ll save 40-50% of your expenses by DIY.

Finally, consider your pull rate. Anything over 5% is fabulous. So, if you mail 20,000 pieces in your service region and drive 1,000 new customers to your hearing aid outlet, you’re going to be one happy store owner.

The key is to develop the Golden List, seed it, choose the best, most eye-catching design and conduct test mailings to refine your list further.

So reach out and touch someone. Someone looking for your hearing health services and products. Those prospects live in your town.

Drop them a line.

John M. Adams III

jma3@hearingtutor.com

 

 

Smart Marketing for Hearing Aid Practitioners

When it comes to marketing, follow the money.

 Virtually all ad revenues for print media – newspapers, periodicals, telephone books, directories – are expected to decline in 2009. You want empirical evidence? Is your morning newspaper as thick as it used to be? Mine isn’t – especially on Mondays.

Prospects want information not a sales pitch and the best way to give it to them?

An interactive website.

Build It And They Will Come

I’ve mentioned the importance of a website in previous blog posts so I’ll keep it short.

A website is the most valuable tool a small hearing aid business has – even if the service area is only 50 square miles! Local search and personalized search – now in common use by most search engine users – drives web traffic to your locally-optimized website. In turn, the website drives visitors to your retail outlet.

That’s why the world wide web (W3) is expected to see an increase in ad revenues estimated at 15% for the current fiscal year.

Go where the money is going.

A Website Is NOT Your Marketing Strategy

It’s the centerpiece, most certainly. Your website is the place to detail services and stress your professional credentials. It’s also easy to show a map of your retail outlet(s) and provide a printable set of directions to get them there.

Add a picture of the store’s exterior to make it easier for Walk-Ins to walk in. “Hey, there it is!” The website is the bull’s eye of your marketing campaign but it is not the end of your marketing efforts.

Use Your Web Site to Capture Local E-Mail Addresses

Visitors aren’t going to give you an e-mail address unless you offer something in return – an e-book buyer’s guide for hearing aids, for example. Write it yourself or hire a writer on a website like Elance.com.

Use the e-book to capture e-mail addresses. Those who “opt-in” for the free download can be contacted by e-mail through a series of auto-responders – automated e-mails sent out periodically to your expanding opt-in list. And remember, these are local prospects looking for your hearing aid services. Hot leads.

Use Auto-Responders to Obtain Mailing Addresses

Don’t backsell the poor prospect to the grave but periodically send an auto-responder (maybe once a month) providing good, practical informational content and not a lot of sell. Let the quality content sell the professionalism of your services.

One tactic is to offer free testing, free demonstrations and free product brochures and good, informational content on hearing health by e-mail and by snail mail. This enables you to capture a prospect’s name and address.

Deliver quality content to your opt-ins. These men and women are thinking about a hearing aid purchase and the more helpful information you provide to further the buying process, the better product fit for the customer and the more customers walking in to your store.

Keep your business’ name in front of prospects via e-mail and regular mail.

Use Direct Mail In Conjunction With E-Mail

Once you’ve captured a name and address, follow up quickly – immediately – with a direct mail letter and/or post card. A coupon also drives store traffic. Depending on the number of product lines your store carries, there’s usually one or two manufacturers with preferential pricing.

Pass these savings on to buyers and let them know by direct mail. Also, post sale information and new product or service offerings by e-mail and by regular mail. Why?

The purchase of a hearing aid is a psychological/emotional decision as well as a financial decision. These means it may take an individual with hearing loss several months or longer of regular reminders that solutions to that hearing loss are available through your store.

In difficult economic times, those who would benefit from a pair of hearing aids are putting off the purchase and turning up the TV instead. It’s a difficult sale when prospects are worried about losing their jobs.

Integrate All Marketing

For greatest impact, make sure all information sent by direct mail also appears on the website or on a separate blog. And don’t forget to include your website URL – your web address – on all printed marketing from direct mail to newspaper adverts to ads in local periodicals.

Also, add that URL to business cards, take-away promotions from the store and other printed promotions like brochures and letters. Your URL is the center of your marketing campaign.

Use it or lose it. (The sale, that is.)

John M. Adams III

jma3@hearingtutor.com