Copyright 2005 Michael Lever
If I was a fortune-teller and you just walked in my door I would
tell you this:
"I see you still seek the dream of earning money in your sleep.
Enough to give you the time and freedom to do what you want,
when you want and without the restriction of having to choose
second-best."
Don't worry, I can't read your mind. I can, however, manipulate
how it controls you without you knowing it.
"No way" you say?
The fact that you're reading this line of text proves I just
manipulated your behavior by provoking your subconscious. I
pushed your emotional buttons and sucked you in to reading more.
How many of your subconscious actions are controlled by someone
else? Who knows, it depends on who you are. But we can all agree
that this human ability to manipulate the behavior of others is
the keystone of today's marketing.
You are being manipulated every waking minute of your day.
The advent of the Internet has connected us globally. Add to
this, the hundreds of thousands of merchants who've adopted
affiliate programs as a way of consigning an army of salespeople
to actively headhunt new customers in exchange for commission
earnings. So where does it end up? Right here: An all time
record number of humans manipulating other humans. No wonder
it's getting harder to sell stuff. From the second you wake up
you're bombarded with attempts to sell you stuff.
People will do anything for money and so they do anything to get
your attention. Taking of their clothes on national TV,
proclaiming outrageous benefits, and acting out 'close to
illegal' attention seeking publicity stunts are not uncommon
tactics.
The inherent problem here is that it's no longer a matter of
whether there are enough customers in the market. It is whether
you can capture and keep a customer's attention for a few
minutes of their 24-hour day. This is why the plethora of
marketers opt to use hypnotic and manipulative communication to
win your attention.
What if you could bypass all this manipulation?
Imagine if you could shut the door on the screaming,
banner-waving crowd of competitive marketers. Sit your customer
down in your office and present your product with their complete
attention?
A new league of customer acquisition techniques that bypass the
constant manipulation is rising from the chaos of today's
marketing. One of which I am personally fond of is 'Customer
Reciprocation'.
Customer Reciprocation takes a holistic view of Internet
marketing, applying traditional win-win formulas to the modern
way of doing commerce. If you remove all the hype of today, what
you're left with is age-old commerce propositions. "Do you need
something to solve your problem? Then buy this product", and
"I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine".
Customer Reciprocation bypasses the hype because each customer
who purchases from the other only purchase the products that
they had already intended to purchase. A fair and honest way to
acquire customers for both affiliate marketers and merchants.
General online shopping portals manipulate customers to shop at
a limited list of merchants by offering discounts, rewards or
other incentives. Customer Reciprocation delivers to you as a
customer the freedom to shop anywhere online while still
receiving a discount. The discount is in the form of a customer
to you or your affiliated merchant generating you income.
Deep down we all like to sell stuff the honest way, and none of
us like to be manipulated. So it is easy to see why Customer
Reciprocation is growing in popularity. It may be a
slow-and-steady customer acquisition strategy but it's one that
is guaranteed to reap results for its users.
About the author:
Michael Lever is a co-founder and CEO of SpinningTornado.com, an
independent company offering unbiased tools and services to help
affiliate and network marketers build profitable online
businesses.
http://www.SpinningTornado.com Partnering affiliates
the world over.
