How A Direct Marketer Can Get Anything They Want

The great motivational speaker, Zig Ziglar, has said, "You can get anything you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want."

Dale Carnegie, author of How to Win Friends and Influence People, put the same thought this way, "The only way to influence someone is to find out what they want, and show them how to get it."

Notice that both these masters of influence say that success lies in what others want.

Ignoring this simple insight is the most common cause of direct marketing failure. Over and over, one of our experts who regularly sit at our conference table has seen otherwise sharp direct marketers launch a product because they want to sell it, not because anyone wants to buy it.

He says. "Remember this always ... you will easily avoid embarrassing failures and discover great riches only when you look at markets through the other end of the telescope ... not the lens of what you want to sell, but the lens of what people want to buy.

Let me tell you something ... I've never bought an aspirin because I want a relationship with my druggist. I buy aspirin because I have a headache!

Headaches, problems, desires and human wants ... these are your markets! Solve a problem ... relieve a pain ... or, answer a burning desire.

"Identify these wants, these hungry crowds, as Gary Halbert puts it, and you can make more money than is likely good for you." Help enough people get what they want, and you can get virtually anything you want.

So, if you are preparing any direct marketing campaign, be it direct mail, a newspaper ad, a magazine ad or an e-mail campaign, make sure you focus on what your audience wants to buy ... by all reasoning, that's what you should want to sell.