Here's the one marketing question that

you need to ask before creating any ads,

any content, or anything else marketing

related. What does my prospect need to

believe in order to buy? This question

is deceptively simple, yet incredibly

powerful because it clarifies exactly

what your marketing must achieve to be

effective. And as an entrepreneur who's

been involved in marketing for over 25

years now, this question from Simple

Marketing for Smart People has

completely changed the way that I think

about marketing. So, let's explore three

key insights for making the most of it,

beginning with number one,

>> [music]

>> marketing is belief building. Our role

as marketers is to shape the beliefs of

potential customers so that buying from

us is an easy choice. Now, our goal is

not to manipulate people into buying

something they don't need or that won't

benefit them, but of course, to identify

the kinds of prospective customers out

there that will absolutely love what we

sell, and then to educate them through

ads, through content, or through other

marketing methods to change their

beliefs and help them realize and

recognize the value of what we sell so

that buying it is an easy choice. And

this entire process ultimately begins by

again answering this very simple

question. What does my prospect need to

believe in order to buy? As a practical

example, consider my book Dinner Time

Conversations, Eight Principles for

Raising Confident, Independent, and

Future-Proof Kids. Now, this is a guide

for parents who want to better prepare

their children to thrive in an

increasingly unpredictable world. So,

the question here is, what are the

beliefs that someone might need to have

in order for this book to be an easy,

obvious purchase? Well, to start, they

probably need to have some beliefs

around the idea that AI and other forms

of automation will disrupt many

industries, that their children's future

careers won't be as stable as their own,

and that [music] in schools probably

don't cover everything that their

children need to know. And of course,

these aren't the only relevant beliefs

because they also have to have certain

kinds of beliefs around how to best

solve these kinds of challenges. For

example, they need to believe that there

are things parents can do to better

prepare their kids to thrive, that kids

need to develop curiosity, confidence,

and problem-solving skills, and that

parents can learn how to nurture these

skills by reading a book. Because even

if they have all of the other beliefs,

if they don't believe they can solve

this problem by reading a book, then

they're not going to buy. So, the goal

here is to ask the simple question and

brainstorm all of the different beliefs

that someone needs to have in order to

make purchasing your product or service

an easy choice, which takes us to

insight number two. Your customers have

a chain of beliefs. Nobody wakes up one

day and suddenly has all of the beliefs

all at once to buy your product or

service. Instead, beliefs tend to emerge

in a predictable sequence. So, for

example, long before somebody signs up

to Drumeo, an online music education

company that I co-founded, they have to

start to develop a natural series of

beliefs, one kind of building on the

next. So, for example, it might start

with the belief that playing music will

make their life better in some way.

Eventually, they might also develop the

belief that they have what it takes to

play the drums. And at some point after

that, they might determine that

step-by-step video lessons are the best

way for them to learn. So, the second

step here is to map out a chain of

beliefs, to take all the different

beliefs that you brainstormed in

response to the earlier question, and to

map them out into a logical sequence

where one belief builds to the next, to

the next, to the next until someone has

all of the beliefs that they need to

make buying from you an easy decision.

And typically, this is going to follow a

traditional marketing funnel structure

where there's an awareness stage, a

consideration stage, and a decision

stage. In the awareness stage, someone

is loosely aware of a problem or an

opportunity that they might want to take

to the next level. In the consideration

stage, they're thinking about whether or

not they want to act, and if they were

to act, what that might look like. And

then finally, in the decision stage,

they're actually deciding what

particular solution or approach they

want to take to solve the problem. So,

you want to map out all of the different

beliefs that you brainstormed, put them

into these different stages, and have a

sense of how you can lead someone from

being completely unaware that they have

a problem or an opportunity to where

they're ready to make a purchase from

you. And a really critical insight here

is the recognition that your very best

prospective customers are the ones that

already have the vast majority of

beliefs. They already have the

underlying beliefs. If we go back to the

Drumeo example, they already believe

that playing music is going to make

their life better. They already believe

that they have what it takes to play the

drums, but they haven't yet decided

exactly what solution they want to use

to learn, in this case, how to play the

drums. And so, you want to identify

those kinds of customers, where people

already have the vast majority of

beliefs, and then you can focus the

overwhelming majority of your marketing

budget on nurturing the final beliefs

they need to make buying from you an

easy decision. And that takes us to

insight number three. Focus on shaping

customer beliefs. Your ongoing marketing

work, the things that you do day in and

day out, should revolve around belief

building. Whether you use

advertisements, social posts, podcast

interviews, YouTube videos, or anything

else, the goal is the same, and that is

to nurture the beliefs that make buying

an easy choice, and to guide customers

through the chain of beliefs that moves

them closer and closer to buying from

you. Now, depending on your business,

depending on your industry, different

kinds of marketing channels and

different kinds of marketing tactics are

going to be more effective. And one

really important insight is that often

times there's one or maybe two marketing

channels that dramatically outperform

the others when it comes to reaching

your particular type of customer. So,

it's very important that you test

different marketing channels and

determine the ones that are aligned,

where it's much easier for for find

people that already have the majority of

the beliefs that they need in order to

buy from you. Now, if you don't yet know

the best marketing channels for your

particular business, or maybe you have

some marketing channels and you're not

really confident in them, then I

recommend that you check out this video

next.