BACKGROUND: Joe Vitale is an explosive, results only marketing consultant and the world’s first Hypnotic Marketer. He is the author of many books, including his book “Spiritual Marketing,” best selling e-book “Hypnotic Writing,” and best-selling Nightingale-Conant audio program, “The Power of Outrageous Marketing.”
INTERVIEW: I had the honor to interview marketing guru, Joe Vitale, in 2002 for an entire hour. Although it was four years ago, his wisdom about realizing success in business and life is still timeless. In this 3 part interview,we cover such topics as: hypnotic marketing, the 5 principles of spiritual marketing, secrets of top marketers like Madonna and Trump, and his TARGET marketing formula. This is part 3 of the series.
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D: In the section on your web site, where you have “The Unspoken Marketing Secrets,”
there was one principle in particular that drew me both as a speaker, as well as a strong advocate of
The Body Shop, CEO, Anita Roddick’s approach to marketing. In her book “Body and Soul,” she
mentions that her company never advertises. That there whole marketing strategy was done
through story-telling. With story-telling as your #1 tip, can you explain what that means
for you from a marketing perspective?
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J: I think advertising is another overlook tool. A lot of people are skeptical of advertising, saying things like “it doesn’t work” or “it is too expensive” or “it doesn’t get results.” Yet I can show you with a little bit of research example after example where advertising has transformed businesses from nothing to colossal businesses.
In fact, during the Great Depression, the companies that continued to advertise are still alive today. Advertising is enormously powerful but, of course, it has to be done right.
I typically don’t encourage small businesses to do any advertising because it is expensive. I am all for street smart guerrilla marketing. I am all for “free” marketing. Just like Anita is. You will note that she is also practice just about all of the 10 tips I talk about on my Nightingale-Conant tape program.
She does mega-publicity events. She is obviously an author. She does media appearances which I consider “free”
advertising. So she doesn’t need to pay for it.
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D: Looking at a time line with regard to what makes true marketing success, what
rules or principles do you feel defy time? Ie., they will always be here, always were?
Any one or two that come to mind?
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J: What a wonderful question. The formula that has been around for 130 years is AIDA.
A … you get attention
I … you get their interest
D … you create desire
A … you call for action
That might be simplifying the whole process. But anyone following those principles will probably do well – online and off. I have updated that formula with TARGET – mentioned in my old book “Cyber Writing: How to Promote Your Product or Service Online Without Being Flamed.” I updated AIDA with the phrase TARGET.
T … Target your audience. Too many people try to go for everyone in the world. Everyone is not going to be your client or prospect. You should target who they are. Find out what they are reading and what they are watching and go that direct route to them.
A … Get their attention.
R … Rouse their emotions. Because people buy for emotional reasons and justify what they buy with logical reasons.
G … Guarantee what you are offering. Guarantees are very powerful. You must, must guarantee it. Even though the law requires you to guarantee it, putting it in writing always increase results.
E … Offer evidence or testimonials. I have often done sales letters that have been 90% testimonials of satisfied customers raving about the product or service I was selling.
T … Tell them what to do. That is the call for action. I have seen many ads that raved about the product but didn’t tell you how to get it. Tell them what to do and give them all the information.
That TARGET formula seems to work for all marketing as a baseline to start with.
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D: Are there any particular marketing success rules or principles, given ,
we are in a cyber world, that will change or new ones will pop up?
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J: I don’t know if I am the best to answer that. My track record as a futurist has been terrible. Five years ago, Mark Joyner with Aesop Marketing was asking me to give him any of my books – published or unpublished – and he would release it as an e-book.
I kept turning him down for 2 full years because I thought “who is going to buy an e-book?” I sit with 5000 hard books. You can look at them. You can hold them. You can bring them to the bathroom with you. So I did not think anyone would buy an e-book.
Finally, after 2 years, I ga 9ve him an old book of mine and said “Put this online and see if you can sell it.” did not think he could sell one. Well, it is “Hypnotic Marketing” and we have sold almost 100,000 of those. So I don’t know if I can product where any of this is going.
I invented e-classes about 2 years ago. E-classes are a high end way of teaching what you know by email only. I didn’t know that would fly. I just follow the principles I write about. Came from my heart. I just bubbled up with it and acted upon it. And found, wow, that people will pay for this.
The thing that comes to mind is that people never change. Technology changes, Customs change, The scenery changes.
People during the P.T. Barnum time were all interested in food, love, romance, more money. We are all interested in the same things today. How we achieve them, how we broadcast our interest in them will probably change. So I don’t know what will come next.
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D: My final question is more on a personal note. I would like you to project yourself
out into the future to a time when you are a vibrant, thriving 80 year old … yet lower
key, fulfilled and proud of all your accomplishments. And you are approached by
Bill Moyers because he wants to write a biography about you. If this is your
lasting legacy, your last communications to the world, what do you want people to
know about you and what your life or your business stood for?
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J: That is a gloriously wonderful question. I am impressed that you asked it the way you did. (Pause) I would say that my purpose in life has been t ≤o help people go for and get their dreams. What that I hope that I have done is inspire them, as well as show them, how to achieve their ideals, their dreams, their miracles in the fastest, easiest, most fun way possible.
Somewhere in my 40’s, I discovered that there is an escalator in life and you don’t have to go up the rocky road of the mountain. You can actually go on the other side and there is an escalator where you can slide on up. And I did my best to tell people where it was.
Denise: I genuinely thank you for your time. It has been an honor and a privilege.
Joe: This has been surprisingly more fun. I thought you would ask me a lot of boring questions, *but you were more authentic in your questions and deeper in your exploring. Thanks for asking me. You made my day.
