Chapter 2: Fire

Flashpoints

  1. When was the last time you checked the temperature? Things may have changed. Make a thorough, honest evaluation of the marketplace and your business and prepare accordingly.
  2. Is your marketing designed to start a fire? Is it tightly focused on sales? Or are you wasting your one match chasing awareness, hoping it will lead to sales? What would happen if you devoted all of it to generating sales instead?
  3. How do consumers react to your product or service? Have you ever asked, Does it have Oh!2 You can’t build a fire unless it does. What changes would improve people’s reaction?
  4. Describe the consumer with the lowest ignition temperature relative to your product or service. Is that who you currently target with your marketing?
  5. Does your marketing reach people when they are clustered into groups so that they can better share your message and their excitement through radiative feedback? Or are you using mass advertising tactics that reach people in isolation where their enthusiasm cools and dies?
  6. If you had to build a fire in the wilderness with one match and could choose among fuels that included dry tinder, tiny twigs, sticks, logs, and wet leaves, which materials would you use and when? Think about the people you target with your marketing. Have you prioritized them properly?

Every marketer is like the Man in “To Build a Fire” by Jack London. Lost in the freezing marketplace, you must sell your product or service to survive. With limited marketing resources you must succeed on your very first attempt because you may not get a second. If you think of marketing as fire, you can do it. Consumers are like fuel. There is money stored in their wallets, but there is also a very strong bond between consumers and their money. Marketing is the heat that raises them beyond their ignition temperature and sets them alight. Consumers exchange their money for products or services, the equivalent of oxygen to a fire. The more remarkable consumers find the product, the higher its centration of Oh!2. The more satisfied consumers are with your product or service, the higher their heat release rate and this positive word of mouth is the single most important factor in the growth of your marketing fire. Building communities of satisfied customers helps them increase their excitement by sharing their experiences. This radiative feedback contributes to a positive heat balance transforming simple customers into customer evangelists who grow your marketing fire to flashover.

Audio

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  1. Introduction:
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      Hear it (MP3 | 18.2 MB | 19:52)
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  2. Chapter 1: From Floods to Flames
  3. Chapter 2: Fire
  4. Chapter 3: Gathering the Driest Tinder
  5. Chapter 4: Touch it with the Match
  6. Chapter 5: Fan the Flames
  7. Chapter 6: Save the Coals
  8. Chapter 7: Afterglow