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Andy Warhol, the successful American painter, said, In the future, everyone will get their 15 minutes of fame. In truth, we Americans love our celebrities, and we are always creating new ones. This is becoming even more prevalent in our rapidly increasing reality culture of blockbuster television shows like American Idol and Dancing with the Stars. If you can become a celebrity, the world is yours, albeit hopefully for more than 15 minutes. American Idol has even promoted its celebrity judges to cult status and incredible incomes. Simon Cowell earns a reported annual salary of more than $435 million just for the American and British version of the Idol TV show. That excludes everything he earns on the Idols themselves and their extremely successful recording contracts. In our marketing and media agency, we have consistently seen the power of celebrity attachment to a product or service, and how it produces an increase in the acceptance and sale of the product or service a company is offering. Over the years, we have come to realize that the simple reason for this is that people would rather buy people than the inanimate object of a product. By using a celebrity personality in the form of an expert, it enhances the acceptance and increases the value of the product to the buyer. The buyer becomes more involved with the whole process as they begin to identify with the celebrity and everything they endorse. Take a moment to think about some of your favorite products that are endorsed by celebrities. You have a positive impression of the product and the celebrity, dont you? The positive impression and loyal feeling is a part of the magic of attaching a celebrity to a product. Now, shift your vision so you can see YOURSELF as the Celebrity Expert, endorsing your own product or service. This is where the real breakthroughs of taking a proven idea and applying it to your own business to increase its revenue occur. By the way, while we would prefer you to be the Celebrity Expert for your own business, you dont have to be. Many businesses have promoted a pastor, family member or loyal employee to this celebrity status for the business. So, if for some reason you dont desire to be the front person, dont miss out on the power that personality can bring your business. How Can You Use This Knowledge to Help Your Product or Service Be More Successful?Celebrity Branding(tm) is not about becoming a fake celebrity. Celebrity Branding(tm) is about discovering who you are and your expertise. As an expert in your field, Celebrity Branding(tm) allows you to market yourself to your target market in an exciting way that produces a response that your prospect notices and then reacts to in the form of buying your product or service because you are the expert. The buyer believes in you and values your reputation. The more you can personally connect, the more value you create with your buying group.You can increase your status from expert, because you are good at what you do, to Celebrity Expert when the world learns about you. We accelerate that process for our clients by getting the word out faster. We also help our clients structure their product or service in a way that is welcomed in the marketplace and generates the highest-perceived value. Who Are You?To become a celebrity brand, you must discover yourself in a unique and compelling way. You must understand who your client or customer really is and what they need from you. Without understanding this basic core of building your brand, the business structure you build will be hollow and unsustainable. Even after you are successful at building your celebrity brand, you must be flexible to change and adapt to your market. Some of the most successful celebrities of all time, like Cher and Madonna, have been the best at adapting and changing with the times by reinventing themselves while constantly delivering what their target audience wanted. They are successful to a great degree because they never lost focus on their market and always fulfilled the needs and desires of their customers. While we cant answer the, Who are you question for you. We often help our clients find the answer by looking at the things that we all seem to gloss over when we attempt to look at ourselves objectively. Here are a few questions that will help you figure this out: - What skills do you have that people find interesting?- What led you to your current job status? Personal status? Financial status?- When people refer business to you, what do they tell others about you? (If you dont know the answer to this question, you should ask!)- Why do your clients continually return to you and your products or services?- What do you do when providing your product or service that is different than what everyone else does?There are many more questions like this, but you get the idea. We concentrate on the things that most people gloss over and say, Thats no big deal. In fact, we are here to tell you that it is a big deal. You got to this exact point in your life based on a series of events, some memorable, some forgettable, some great and some not so great, but all of those events brought you to this moment in time and have had a lasting effect. No other individual in the world has the exact same story as you, so dont hide who you are and where you come from. Thats what makes you unique! The key factor you need to pay attention to when finding your story is to allow an objective third party help you weed through the story, pull out the fluff and keep the meat. We know firsthand how hard it is to be objective about your own work, so every time we write something, we always turn it over to a team of trusted colleagues, family and friends for their opinion. That is also what we are able to do for our clients; help them be objective. What is Your Mission?The next question the world wants answered, once they know who you are is, What is your mission? In other words, How can you help me? Thats really what it all boils down to. What is it that you do that makes life easier, better, more fun or profitable for your customers?The easiest way to answer this question is by looking at an old marketing phrase, Tell your prospects about benefits, not features. To understand this concept, lets look at a few examples: Feature/Benefit:- Open 24 hours/Come in when its convenient for you!- We offer many loan programs/We can help you find a loan with the right payment options for you!- We handle corporate law/Let us handle your corporate paperwork so you can do what you do best, run your business and make more money. You can see how telling someone about benefits can help them quickly identify, Whats in it for me? This breakthrough is necessary for a person to give you the opportunity to earn their business. By telling potential clients about benefits instead of features, you take the guess work out of trying to figure out how your product or service will benefit them; you simply tell them up front!For the rest of the chapter, please visit our website.
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