Fix your Marketing with AMCAF

Fix your Marketing with AMCAF

AMCAF stands for Audience, Message, Channel, Asset, and Follow-up.  If your marketing campaign is failing, at least one of these is broken.

Read on and get your campaigns back on track!

Table of Contents

AMCAF Mindset

First things first.  This article is about how to market your company’s products and services more effectively.  I’m glad you’re here, but if you’re not crystal clear on the difference between marketing and sales, I think you’ll get more out of this article if you watch this YouTube video first, then come back and finish reading this article.

If you’re short on time, at least watch the section of the video called “Marketing – AMCAF” and the section right after it, “Marketing vs Sales – Value First!”  Together they’re about 3 minutes long and should give you all the background you need to keep reading.

AMCAF is like Bumpers at a Bowling Alley
Photo courtesy of https://www.qubicaamf.com/ – Making Bowling Amazing!

Zero-Point Selling Crash Course

Zero-Point Selling is Rethink Revenue’s system for guiding a company to setting a new sales record.  We talk about it all over this site and all over YouTube, but here are the highlights of ZPS relevant to AMCAF:

  • Zero-Point Selling starts with building a list of people you think you’d really like working with as clients.  We call the people on this list “Targets”.
  • Put your Targets in a database so you can track your interactions with them.
  • Targets have probably never heard of you or your company.  It’s Marketing’s job to change that – to generate brand awareness, nurture relationships, and ultimately generate leads for your sales team to qualify and close.
  • We believe in the power of inbound, attraction-based marketing.  If you understand your audience’s needs and how to solve their pain points or how to help them chase their dreams, you will win.
  • It usually takes several “touches” from a company before a person is willing to entertain a sales conversation with that company.  Be patient.  Keep demonstrating value.  Create a value ladder that offers value exchanges of increasing size so you and your audience both get something they want.
  • Be strategic, don’t spam people, do market at a large scale, and do automate as much as possible.  People don’t like being sold to.  Provide value, value, value every chance you get.

This whole concept is illustrated in our Customer Journey Framework (pictured below) and KITE model, which we’ll talk more about later in separate articles.  For now just know that Marketing is only one piece to the Zero Point Selling puzzle.

Rethink Revenue Customer Journey Framework
Rethink Revenue Customer Journey Framework

Without further ado, let’s jump into AMCAF – Audience, Message, Channel, Asset, Follow-up.

AMFAC – A is for Audience

This is where it all begins.  As I said before, if you can help your customer solve their problems or achieve their dreams, you win.

But how do you know whose problems to solve or whose dreams to chase?

Most companies either a) have a product/service they’re trying to sell more of but don’t know who to sell to, or b) have a target market they want to sell to but don’t know what products and services to offer to that market.

We help people and organizations in the first category – people who know what they’re trying to sell more of, but aren’t sure how to do it.

As I said before, in the Zero-Point Selling model, we first build a list of Targets then help our clients go develop relationships with them.  The natural question of course:

How do I build a list of Targets?

We strongly recommend you consider your three favorite customers (who bought the offering you’re trying to market for).  Not your three biggest customers or your three oldest customers, but the people you actually like working with the most.

Why do you like working with them so much?  Is it because they have interesting challenges for you to solve?  Are they in a particular industry you enjoy supporting?  Does the company have a culture or values you identify with?  Do you share the same sense of humor with them?

Once you nail this down, start building a list of more people like those three.  You can build a list yourself or you can buy a list, but you have to have a clear picture in your head of what your “Perfect Prospect” looks like before you go forward.

“Uhhh I’m stuck already”

No problem!


When our clients have a hard time defining their target Audience, we go through the Perfect Prospect Exercise with them.

Basically, we ask who their three favorite customers are and what they’re like, then we go find them a bunch more people who look just like the first three.

That “look-alike” audience goes into the client’s CRM and then they can start marketing to their new Targets!

Get Your Very Own Audience - For Free - Really!

Want us to Build an Audience For You?

We've opened up our Perfect Prospect to everyone!  Just click the button below, fill out the form, and we'll build a custom Audience just for you!

Build Me An Audience

Build an Audience for your TOP Product or Service

One final note on audiences –  if your company has multiple products or services, we strongly recommend you design your first marketing campaign to boost your top-selling product or service.

Why?

Because we want you to see FAST results and we want you to see OBVIOUS results.  If you see your lead count go from 10 to 15 a month after you start your marketing campaign, that’s a pretty obvious increase.

If your lead count goes from 1 to 2, sure that’s a 100% increase but that’s still not a very significant increase in most industries.

AMCAF – M is for Message

Picture yourself at a networking event.  When you meet someone new, what are the first words out of your mouth?

  1. “Hi, I’m Phil.  What’s your name?” OR
  2. “Hi, I sell insurance.  Would you like me to send you a quote?  It only takes a few minutes.  Just give me your email address!  You could save a lot of money!”

Option one is the obvious answer here.  It’s easy to fall into “sales mode” when you’re working on a marketing campaign, but people REALLY don’t like being sold to and most people can smell a sales pitch coming from a mile away.

People don’t like being marketed to either.  In fact, we’re so used to being marketed to these days, that we pretty much automatically tune out most marketing message when we see or hear them.

For that reason, you have to work hard to stand out.  How do you stand out though?  Easy.  Focus on providing value to your audience without any kind of bait and switch or underhanded sales pitch and eventually they will see that you’re one of the “good guys.”

In order to craft a marketing message that is genuine, conveys value, and actually resonates with people, we use the “Hook, Story, Offer” method.

☝️ Remember when you're writing your marketing campaigns, you're writing to real people with real feelings!

Hook, Story, Offer

Hook, Story, Offer is a great way to increase marketing engagement.  We didn’t invent it and while you can see Mark’s full explanation of Hook, Story, Offer here, here’s what it boils down to:

  • Hook – Make the first sentence of your message a real attention grabber.  Questions work well, and so do contentious/challenging statements.
  • Story – Give a little background about the problem your audience faces.  Show you understand what they’re going through and how it affects them.
  • Offer – Offer some help with the problem.  Again, you’re not trying to sell here, but do show that you’re an industry expert and you solve this same problem for other people all the time.

“But Phil!  How can we help our audience if we don’t sell them anything?”

Just because you’re ready to sell, doesn’t mean your audience is ready to buy!  You’ve got to warm them up first.  Give people a reason to like and trust your brand.

For now just focus on offering value in the form of Assets and I’ll describe below how you get “paid” for it.

Call to Action

This is the last thing to nail down in your Message.  Your Offer has to have a strong Call To Action (CTA).

Ask yourself: “What is the desired outcome of this marketing campaign?”

Newsletter sign-ups?  Whitepaper downloads?  Booked meetings?

Whatever you’re trying to get from this campaign, you need to make that goal CRYSTAL CLEAR in your Offer.  Here are some example CTAs:

  • Newsletter sign-ups -> Subscribe today!
  • Whitepaper downloads -> Get it now!
  • Free Webinar -> Sign up now!

Try to make sure each marketing message has only ONE CTA.  Don’t include other links or offers in your message or people might get distracted from completing the one desired action.  A landing page on your website should be very simple and it should drive users towards just one clear action!

AMCAF – C is for Channel

There are many ways to market your products and services these days – digitally through Facebook, Google or LinkedIn ads; in-person through door-knocking, attending networking events or tradeshows; remotely through letters and postcards, phone calls, email, smoke signals, trade journals, TV, radio and more.  The list goes on and these are ALL valid marketing channels.

The challenge is to choose the right Channel for your audience.  Facebook’s two billion users and strong ad targeting are definitely alluring, but I know sales professionals still have great success with cold calling and cold e-mailing also.  Choosing the right channel all goes back to knowing your Audience!  Find where they congregate and advertise there.

Just keep in mind where people are in their buyer’s journey (perception of your company) when you choose your Channel.  Nobody likes getting unsolicited telemarketing calls or spammy junk email.  A better idea would be to try reaching out to someone on LinkedIn before calling or e-mailing.  Perhaps you could send them some marketing collateral to educate them on your company and help them see your value.  Be smart and remember you are trying to build a relationship with a human being.  Treat them like one!

AMCAF – A is for Asset

I probably lost a lot of readers above when I said we should give away value for free, but here’s where that statement comes full circle.
 
We’re not REALLY giving stuff away for free.  We are creating a value exchange where we offer something of value to our audience – an Asset – in exchange for something of value to us – information.
 
“Well dang Phil, why didn’t you lead with that?”
 
Yes, I know, we’re all so awesome that people would be crazy not to sign up for our newsletters or webinars, but remember that we all get marketed to ALL THE TIME.
 
You have to do something to stand out so I want you to give away something for FREE that will compel people to complete that Call To Action you put at the end of your message.  (Hook, Story, Offer [CTA] remember?)
 
This something free could be a piece of marketing collateral you’ve created – a whitepaper, a “how to” guide, a self-audit, etc – or it could be something more tangible like a drawing for an Amazon gift card, but the fact remains – people love getting stuff for FREE so find something you can give away and watch your funnels grow like crazy!

Trade Value for Value

Before you worry that I’m asking you to dump more money into your marketing budget, that’s not necessarily true.
 
Instead of giving away stuff for free, we’re actually trading value for value and this is critical to both AMCAF and Zero Point Selling.
 
The big idea here is you should be willing to trade something you want – a person’s contact information or demographics for example – for something your audience wants.
 
Depending on your audience and how you help them, they may appreciate a whitepaper or case study.  If you’re asking a lot of them, either in the way of time or of information, you might need to offer a better asset in return.
 
Remember, in Zero Point Selling, we’re sending marketing campaigns to people who have never heard of us before.  We don’t know much about them and they don’t know much about us.
 
So every time we offer something for “FREE” in our Marketing campaigns, we should be getting contact or demographic information in return.  Contact information includes things like email address, phone number, address, etc.  Demographic information includes things like company headcount/revenue, number of locations, industries served, number of offices, etc.
 
If we use assets and value exchanges intelligently, we can slowly build a very detailed profile of the people in our audience, which allows us to market to them much more effectively – we get to know about their needs and can provide messaging that is designed for people and companies just like them.
 
Conversely, through the course of these value exchanges, we may find out that a person or company is not a good fit for us – too small, wrong industry, etc. – which will speed up the lead qualification process down the road.  Either way, you’re getting value for value!

AMCAF – F is for Follow-Up

Once the campaign is running, you need to follow up.  What’s this follow-up look like?

In a perfect world, your CRM includes marketing automation so it’s doing your follow-up for you automatically – it “knows” who’s opening your emails and who isn’t, who’s clicking on links and who isn’t, etc.

If you’re just building your very first funnel, you’ll probably be following up manually via phone or email, which is fine.  Everyone has to start somewhere and we’re glad you’re here!

If The Campaign Worked

If your marketing worked, congratulations!  As many will tell you, this is quite an accomplishment but the work is only beginning.

Generally our clients are marketing to people who have never heard of their companies before.  Getting the first campaign running – to drive newsletter subscriptions for example – is just the first step.

Now it’s time to build another campaign that will continue to nurture the relationships you began in your previous campaign.  Continue to establish your brand, build trust, and trade value for value so you can get to know your audience(s) even better.

The beauty of AMCAF is that it can always be improved so if your funnels are all done, you can always go back and test new ideas to make them more effective, more automated, or less expensive!

If They Didn’t Reply

If you’re still getting no results from your Marketing campaign, then investigate any available analytics.  Most digital marketing platforms (Facebook, Google, Hubspot, Mailchimp, etc) have detailed analytics to find out what’s working and what’s not.

If you’re using a CRM like Hubspot to drive your marketing efforts, then you should be able to diagnose most of your funnel in one place – from email open and click rates to ad performance, landing page performance and more.

If all else fails and you’re still stuck, feel free to contact us.  We love building funnels and we’d be happy to help you get yours all tuned up.

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