Introduction
Companies are still using the traditional tools of marketing, in spite of the fact that consumers are no longer responding in the way they used to. They assume that they are doing the right thing, but need to do it better, when in reality they are doing the wrong thing and it doesn't matter how much effort they put into it - it's simply not going to work.
For all its apparent sophistication, traditional approaches to marketing are based on operant conditioning, and consider the customer to be no more intelligent than Pavlov's dog. . Customers have learned the bell-and-biscuit trick and are inured to it, so these same tactics will no longer work.
Many years ago, it was recognized that customers are bombarded with commercial messaging, and have learned to ignore it. The solution that has been tried is simply to shout louder than anyone else. Then everyone raised their voices, so that didn't work.
The next tactic was to attempt to reach into the quiet spaces in the lives of customers, to attempt to speak to them when no-one else was trying to. Not only did this fail because the "quiet times" were no longer quiet, but also because customers reacted in a hostile manner to the unwanted intrusion.
Ultimately, the volume or persistence of marketing are simply attempts to do the wrong thing more forcefully. Marketers need to change their tactics, rather than be more efficient at executing on a plan that is no longer working.
WIIFM: "What's in it for Me?"
The authors intend for this book to be a practical guide: it is not describe a theoretical model, but looks to everyday practices, and is geared to the creation of a coherent and persuasive system.
In doing so, the authors intend to address several key questions:
- How and why has marketing permanently changed?
- Why do customers respond differently than they once did?
- How is it possible to anticipate what customers require?
- How does "persuasion architecture" bridge the gap between marketers and customers?
- How can "persuasion architecture" be implemented?
In doing so, they intend to provide "a necessary framework for preparing both marketers and sales staff to manage and respond to the demands emerging media place on them."
Success by Multiples
(EN: More marketing claims about what reading the book will do for the reader - essentially, getting results that are not just percentages, but multiples of that achieved by current practices.)