Why pay Imran S$5,600 for business coaching when you can read this? – From a fellow marketer

And also, what we can take away from these videos.

Today, AsiaOne covered an article on influencer Carrine Low’s IGTV. This episode followed her on her ‘Wealth Coaching Sessions’ journey where she explores taking up such courses to learn how to make more money – by first paying more money lol. She totalled the amount to be a whopping S$12,200 before you even start earning.

Okay, I’m sure almost everyone in Singapore has already come across ads from IQuadrant, Imran, Pengjoon, some fengshui masterclass, and even more on Online Marketing. As much as some of these mentioned sessions have been labeled ‘scams’, I have to applaud their success in what seems to be a pretty full turnout amidst the Covid-19. As someone who used to run events (and still do now and then), this reflects pretty good motivation on attendees’ end.

I’m a marketer and hence, I pay a lot more attention to the content and similarities in all these advertisements when they roll through my feed and between videos. If you’re one of those who possibly signed up, or have considered paying for their services and knowledge, I’m here to assist while you save up S$5,600 to “make even more money”.

So here’s what I can offer to you now, for free.

What we can learn from these Facebook ads

In the past we never had a social media platform or any platform to receive such personalised and targeted advertisements. And now we do. Just like how FB got into deep shit for its Cambridge Analytica controversy – we get to have a glimpse of how powerful such platforms actually are.

And today, businesses are turning from OOH and prints to direct targeting through such programmatic advertising. This generates a much better ROI for businesses since you can perform A/B testing to optimise your ad campaigns every step of the way – from creatives to the behaviour and demographics of your targeting audience.

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Convince but first, grow familiarity

With this, the similarity between all these advertisements we’ve seen are the testimonials, whether or not if it’s of themselves or of other people. Success stories always work. This is self-explanatory. If someone can do it, so can you! Putting a face behind a brand, company, or product will make such stories even more relevant and credible to the average person.

1. Put a face to your brand

This includes word-of-mouth from your clients, people whom you know and trust. As a marketer from a consulting firm, I have to say that most business owners neglect and undermine the importance of having a face represent a brand or company. Looking at Binance, we trust CZ. Looking at Tesla, we buy into Elon Musk’s genius.

Think about your favourite economic rice or mutton biryani place. Sometimes you return because of the people. Sure, it isn’t the core product. But it sells. Also, online advertisements with creatives including human beings (faces in particular) generally has a higher CTR (Click-Through-Rate). Human presence grabs and retains attention.

2. Create familiarity through frequency

In today’s digital age, physical stores are out of touch and businesses are expanding beyond borders, easily. A brand is nothing but a business if there is no emotional element to it. To relate, it is not just about the statistical benefits you bring to potential consumers. To relate, it is about creating a connection, a bond between yourself as a brand, and what could be a loyal customer. This is especially important because of how the internet has allowed businesses to expand beyond borders and this also means that people do not enter a physical store and look at your faces to relate anymore.

Frequency matters. More number of times I’ve seen your face, I start to go beyond the ‘first impression’. After the third, fourth times I start creating my own impressions of your advertisements. More frequency leads to a higher chance of your audience being annoyed at how repeated these ads are. This was similar to our ‘Swipe Up’ ads in the past at Gaigai. Exactly because you hate seeing it, and the fact that you remember that you hate seeing it – this proves that it is memorable.

2. Re-engage with people you’ve advertised to before, but differently

When you see Imran’s ads, it isn’t always the same ones. They switch between content, making you feel like you don’t really get served a repeated video. This subtly reflects effort in creating new content, which some targeted audience would now bother to stop and view it a little more because – hey, it’s different this time, and I know this guy.

If you do this enough times through a cycle, always value-adding your potential customer’s journey as he or she sees your ad by creating various insightful content – it will display thought leadership and like you know your shit. Haha.

3. Throw in numbers

So we’ve been through humanising an ad. Now all you need is convincing numbers to actually showcase the success of these stories you’re leveraging on. You’ve gotten their attention the first time you flashed your face and said “Hi my name is Imran” – the next step, before they run of patience, throw in some statistics that will convince them your service or product works. In Imran’s case, it’s focused on sales volume and increase in revenue. Go back to what your product/service is, what kind of results seems convincing?

4. Not all businesses are suited for this

With Imran’s core source of leads for these online marketing sessions being Facebook, it is perfectly justifiable why he’s put in a lot of effort creating content and running ads to target consumers. You have to be aware that not all advertisements would work with a similar marketing strategy, depending on type of products/services.

For Imran, his “results” are human beings – people who have been coached by him. Hence, success stories from these people are highly convincing.

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Creating Your Campaigns

Always ask questions before you begin.

Why are marketers today from different field of studies? I personally am a Fine Arts student who majored in Photography. So nope, I never was academically “certified” to be a marketer. But why?

It’s because marketing is logic coupled with creativity. Anyone can do marketing. As a marketer or business owner, when you’re running advertisements or coming up with campaigns, it is necessary for you to understand your business inside out. You need to know what problems your products or services are solving. You need to know your target audience – what types of people would buy from you? What is your narrative? Imran wants to help people reach their full potential, what do you want to achieve (that people care about)? Always focus on how the consumer can benefit from what you offer and not just what you offer.

If we refer back to Imran’s advertising, it’s probably because you did one or all of the following: searched for money making classes, hovered over his video, viewed the video, or even clicked on the advertisement taking you to the landing page. The landing page is where conversion to being a slightly warmer lead happens.

Why should they want this? Who would want to pay for this?

This is the logic. You showed interest. And all these engagements on an ad are collected. Your interest shows you want money. He knows that. He serves you content that shows how exactly he’s making that much. He offers you more insights ‘for free’ in this video, and if you meet up with him or his team. This sells. Because who would show their faces and share their names for a business that doesn’t work? That was your thought process, and this is his logic.

Unfortunately, it is your greed for ‘easy money’ which makes this so much easier to run an advertisement to hit you where it hurts, because you would fall for the hook of making more money.

Put yourself in their shoes. Help them visualise.

Many marketers and business owners run advertisements while having the mentality that their solutions and services they offer are ‘good for them’. And so, they think “why do i have to convince them?”, “they should be convinced by the numbers alone.”

But that’s not how it works. To sell a product or service, instead of telling them exactly what you offer, you need to allow space for them to

1. take in your information (on benefits)
2. actually visualise how this affects their life (could be convenience etc etc.)

This is why copywriting with clear descriptive visual such as “happier family”, “disease-free family” tends to work better than just putting out pointers such as “germ-free”, “cleanliness” – if you get it.

Reach me on LinkedIn if you have questions.

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Okay, this sums up my one-hour writing after reading that article and watching the video. But I’d also like to point out that if you do go to Imran for courses, instead of the strategies of online marketing, pay more attention to the way he sells a product or service to you. Pick up a thing or two, and that’s where you’ll actually get your money’s worth. He’s undoubtedly a good salesperson.

Thanks Imran.