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Thanks and enjoy!
Niche Marketing: The Stromboli Strategy™
Copyright © 2002 - 2010 by Susan Harrow. All rights reserved.
The owner of my favorite neighborhood boulangerie stopped selling strombolis
because they were "not profitable," even though the delectably
tangy toasted "sandwiches" were immensely popular. He wanted
customers to buy his jam, his expensive jam. What he doesn't understand
is that the customers who come in to buy the strombolis could be converted
into jam buyers. But without the strombolis, the jams are irrelevant to
people like me. I'm not a jam eater. But I am a big stromboli fan. And
the other savories in his shop nearly always enticed me, so while I walked
in to get strombolis, I walked out with soup, chicken pot pie, gingersnaps,
and cobbler.
When I first wrote "Sell
Yourself Without Selling Your Soul®," I thought that the title
would pack seminars. What I found was people wanted results fast, and
most didn't want to take the time to build a business from the ground
up. They wanted to start at the top! I put my heart and soul, and the
most important insights, tips and techniques into this book, but the premise
didn't catch on in a big way.
Understanding this basic human psychology (short cuts are king), I thought
about how I could get people interested in my core message while giving
them what they wanted at the same time as giving them what they needed.
So I created the seminar "How to Get Booked on Oprah and Other Top
Talk Shows" and wrote "The
Ultimate Guide to Getting Booked on Oprah." These were my strombolis.
The seminar was packed, the Oprah book sold, and so did "Sell Yourself",
along with my consulting services (my jam). The Oprah products got entrepreneurs
and authors deeper into the essentials of good publicity though my book
and working with me personally.
Here are 3 ways to develop your Stromboli Strategy™:
1. Discover What Clicks.
Tim Ferriss, author of the New York Time Best-Seller, "The Four-Hour
Workweek", thought the best title of his book was "The Vagabond
Millionaire." But that's not what his audience thought. He tested
about four titles with Google ads to see what took and found out that
"The 4 hour Work Week" won unanimously. In order to find out
what your audience needs, ask them. Don't assume.
I wrote "The Ultimate Guide to Getting Booked on Oprah" because
my email and voicemail boxes were filled with requests to get on The Oprah
Show. I understood that people's desire for this was strong. Many people
who bought the Oprah book later hired me for media coaching or to create
a pitch to get on the show. The book was what drew them to me, then they
bought other more lucrative services.
Many became clients who wanted me to help them create a long term marketing
strategic plan to grow their businesses with media. That work often involved
media coaching, developing their website to convert visitors to buyers,
and more. I knew that some key Google words for my product contained the
word "Oprah" and "Be a guest on Oprah" etc., so there
is a constant stream of people who come to my website for Oprah and leave
with other products or services in their shopping cart.
2. Don't Dump the Dough.
Don't worry about profit to the exclusion of what's important. I would
never eliminate a popular product or service because it didn't make a
profit. I'd figure out another way to configure it so it worked. The gruff
boulangerie man could have taught his assistant how to make that time-consuming
dough. He could have made a huge batch of his strombolis and frozen them
so he'd always have them on hand. If you've found your Stromboli Strategy™,
streamline it so it works for you, your customers and clients.
3. Jam.
Once you know your jam, make it sweet. Sometimes the price of jam is
hard to swallow. Think about how you can move someone gently from stromboli
to jam in a way that tastes good. Is there a way to sweeten the pot so
that there is a natural progression from what someone craves to what someone
needs? For example, many people who have bought "The Ultimate Guide
to Getting Booked on Oprah" do get that call from the producer to
be on The Oprah Winfrey Show, but don't make the cut.
That's because I can't media coach people from a book. While these Oprah
hopefuls may still not be able to afford my consulting or media coaching
(the jam), they may be able to afford
The
Sound Bite System for Success™ online class and CD series (the
chicken pot pie) to help them develop their distinct message, so when
the Oprah producer, or any producer calls they get selected as a guest.
Use the pot pie as a segue into your jam. The Stromboli Strategy™
is a gentle way to satisfy your good clients and customers, and insure
your business keeps drawing people in the door.
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Susan Harrow, CEO of
http://prsecrets.com, is
a top media coach, marketing strategist and author of
Sell Yourself Without Selling Your Soul® (HarperCollins),
The
Ultimate Guide to Getting Booked on Oprah, and
Get a 6-
Figure Book Advance. Clients include Fortune 500 CEOs, bestselling authors and entrepreneurs who have appeared on
Oprah, 60 Minutes, NPR, and in TIME, USA Today, Parade,
People, O, NY Times, WSJ, and Inc. |
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