The Metaphysics of Marketing
How to be spiritual and still make money.
Ever wanted your marketing to work like magic? The secret is to structure your marketing to work on a metaphysical level. Today we’re going to take spiritual secrets and apply them to your business to amplify your success.
If you’ve ever thought “I hate marketing! Why can’t I just do the spiritual work I love” then you’re doing marketing wrong. Marketing IS spiritual work.
Marketing is an initiation ritual.
I’m going to say that again. Marketing is an initiation ritual. It is the invitation to the prospect to step into an experience that will change their lives. That’s initiation.
Ads and Promotion — Awareness Raising
Before you can ask someone to step into a transformational process, they have to be aware of three things:
- They have a problem
- Their problem bothers or interests them enough to want to solve it
- The problem can be solved
Motivation To Change
If they aren’t aware of the problem, or the problem isn’t that painful to them, or they don’t think it can be solved, then there is no motivation for the person to enter their initiation. So your initial promotional materials should be focused on giving them the motivation to change. This means identifying the problem, heightening their awareness of the pain the problem causes, and assuring them it can be fixed.
You’re The Expert
Next, they have to believe you are someone who can fix it. This can come through credentials, social proof, or building a relationship with them.
If you can answer a question for them or, even better, tell them something they didn’t know they needed to know, then you’re well on your way to establishing yourself as the expert they need to help them.
Let’s use this article as an example. First, I enticed you with the concept of telling you about something you didn’t know you needed to know — the metaphysics of marketing. Then, I made you aware of a problem you’re having — your marketing isn’t working like magic, and you wish it would. The tone of my writing is very matter-of-fact and in writing this way and talking about the solution, I am both establishing myself as an expert and saying the problem can be solved.
See, not all of these points have to be addressed directly. In fact, if we are looking at this as a ritual, they shouldn’t all be addressed directly.
Some should be represented symbolically (your written imagery, the certainty in your tone, the actual images you use in your ads — like the one above, etc.) Others should be addressed directly — for instance, you need to name the pain to bring it into full view.
And the rest should be implied so as to allow the prospect to fill in their own experience. For instance, I said you want your marketing to work like magic but I didn’t say why. This way you, the reader, can fill in whether you are a 6 figure CEO trying to take your business to the next level or you’re a start-up entrepreneur bootstrapping your business and just trying to make rent.
If this were a pure marketing piece for me, I would have described my target market better, to let those who aren’t my people (yet) self-select out. But this is an information piece designed to be helpful in its own right, so I left that identifier undefined so more people would find the content relevant to them. An article has to sell the reader on continuing to read every paragraph.
Finally, the prospect must clearly see themselves (or who they want to be) and what they want in the invitation. You have to identify them, or they won’t know it’s for them and they might skip over it. Again, you can do this directly — “Attention 6-figure business owners with a spiritual bent!” Or indirectly by presenting a topic you know will be compelling to them as I did with my choice of topic here.
Don’t Do This
What you DON’T want to do in an ad is solve the problem or even define how you’re going to solve it. This pulls the energy out of the initiation. The anticipatory energy builds up, the fear/excitement teeter-totter causes their heart to pound at the possibilities is the fuel moving the person through the initiation. If you go into teaching mode around the issue or get too in the weeds of the process, you drain all the energy out of the process and stop it in its tracks.
Once the prospect has built up this energy, then you need to provide them with a compelling Invitation to learn more — a place for them to put their energy and continue to build it. This can be a lead magnet or a sales page or booking a call with you to discuss their options.
Call To Action
Your call to action is the doorway you open (the initiation threshold), inviting them into the space of potentiality between you. It’s not a commitment to buy, it’s a statement of the hope they hold in their mind — ex: Yes! I want to know how to run my business energetically!
You notice my example not only stated a hope: it’s possible to run your business energetically, but also a promise of what they would find if they clicked on the link. This is the final step to making an ad work — get them to want what you are promising so they will click through to the next stage of your initiation — the sales page or the appointment page. I’ll do articles on each of these in the months to come.
In the meantime, get started on turning your ad copy into an initiation ritual. You have all the elements, pick a focus and a target market and you’re ready to ritual!
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