What’s All This “Attraction” Mumbo Jumbo?

If you’ve been involved in Internet Marketing for more than about 20 seconds, you’ve probably heard of “Attraction Marketing.”

So what is it and why is so much attention being paid to attraction?

The premise is that, if you are successful in attraction marketing, prospective customers will seek you out, cash in hand, to take advantage of what you’re offering.  Sound’s pretty “attractive” to me, but that’s the RESULT of attraction marketing, not what it in fact is.

To understand WHAT attraction marketing is, you have to ask the question, “Why would people come to me and ask to buy my stuff?”

The answer to that is, “Because you engage in a practice of GIVING BEFORE YOU RECEIVE.”

Attraction marketing is based on the philosophy that if you can get people to like and trust you, then they are almost certainly more likely to respond favourably when you DO ask them to purchase something. The best way to get them to like you is to consider their needs and provide solutions with valuable information or materials, free of charge.

By focusing on the prospect’s needs, and demonstrating a willingness and ability to satisfy those needs, without concern for remuneration of any kind, you build a reputation as a trusted friend as opposed to a salesperson. Once that reputation is accepted by a prospect, a condition of reciprocity takes hold, where the prospect feels compelled to “return the favour” for all the good they have gotten from you.

Most people will, almost unconsciously, seek to balance the scales and when you send them an offer many will purchase out of a desire to even things out.

I tend to think of it as the “reciprocity battery.” By providing great content, focused on your prospect’s needs, you charge the reciprocity battery in your favour.  Then, when you send a marketing piece to your prospects, the reciprocity charge will flow back in your direction, the result of which is a significantly higher response rate – sales, or other action taken – than if you were sending the same marketing message to “cold” prospects.

How do you get attraction marketing working for you? Here are a three tips to help ensure that your reciprocity battery gets charged.

1. Ensure that your free materials are, indeed, valuable and that it is targeted to the needs of your prospects.
2. Make sure that your “giving” out weighs your “taking”.  Strive for a minimum of 80% GIVE and a maximum of 20% TAKE.
3. Be consistent in your giving. Just like a battery sitting too long on a shelf, your reciprocity charge will dwindle if you let your prospects go too long between communications from you.

As that last point shows, you need to communicate consistently with your prospects.  A good rule of thumb is to communicate with a new prospect between 5 to 7 times in the first week following their introduction to you (i.e. opting into your list).  After that you should back-off the communications, but don’t disappear completely. A note from you, once or twice a week, is sufficient to keep you in their thoughts and will keep the reciprocity charge fresh.

In this era of fierce, in your face, endless advertising, attraction marketing offers a welcome change to your prospects, and makes it much simpler to build a valuable relationship with them. As long as you’re willing to give before you receive, attraction marketing WILL serve you as well as you serve your prospects.