Business Hack

CHAPTER 2Sales and Marketing

Once you've determined what you are selling, it's time to focus on the process of selling it, and in order to sell it you have to work out a marketing strategy. Your marketing strategy tells people who you are and what you are selling; your sales strategy gets them to buy it. First of all we are going to look at your marketing strategy, at how you provide information to people, and then at the channels through which you sell your products and services. In subsequent chapters we will look more closely at the traditional sales machine and conversion strategies.

The AIDA Marketing Formula

The best way of getting information to people directly is to send them the information in an email. You need your potential customers to know who you are, what you are selling and how they can get it. The first part of that process is to get them to open an email from you. Once they've opened your email, you need to get them to click through to your website, and finally you need to get them to purchase the product or service you have on offer.

If the first part of the process is getting people to read an email, how do you get someone to open an email in the first place? You need to write an enticing headline that gets their attention or makes them aware. Your headline (written in the subject field of your email) is designed to “sell the open”, i.e. to get them to open the email. Next you have to “sell the click”, i.e. get them to click through to your website. You ...