How to Spread Your Idea

So how do you make an impact with an idea you have and make it spread?

1. Start!
2. Build a list (name and email).
3. Create a memorable story.
4. Make people laugh.
5. Be likeable.
6. Be generous.
7. Make people cry.
8. Create emotion.
9. Create scarcity.
10. Do something unexpected.
11. Be passionate.
12. Make something that people will want to talk about.
13. Know who you want to influence.
14. Think of someone in mind for your idea.
15. Connect your idea with your true fans.
16. Create the idea for a few.
17. Make your idea work for the many.
18. Be the best choice.
19. Be creative.
20. Promote your idea.
21. Promise something and deliver it.
22. Build momentum.
23. Make marketing an event.
24. Create a pre-launch campaign with a sequence of messages.
25. Ask people to try it.
26. Make it easy to use.
27. Make it easy to buy.
28. Make it appealing.
29. Make it simple.
30. Think what’s next?
31. Solve a problem for your prospect.
32. Have a distribution list of clients and prospects.
33. Nurture
34. Use social media to promote.
35. Give people a reason to subscribe.
36. Engage your prospects/customers in a conversation not a lecture.
37. Tell us why we should care.
38. Be the authority.
39. Build community.
40. Create personal touches.
41. Engineer massive anticipation to your launch. 
42. Create an awesome landing page
43. Know your customer.
44. Question why someone would buy, use, or talk about your product or service to a friend.
45. Ask some friends to try it.
46. Engage an audience and build trust.
47. Help people to care about what you are doing or selling.
48. Ask your followers to help you by sharing it.
49. Create a compelling offer.
50. Know how people buy.
51. Create triggers based on activities from your landing page or site. 
52. Drive traffic to your landing page with natural search traffic, paid search, and social media.
53. Create a mindmap to process your thoughts.

Just random thoughts but all are important and part of a tight process when our team is evaluating an idea.

Following are some thoughts to consider:

1. (#1) – “Everyone who’s ever taken a shower has an idea. It’s the person who gets out of the shower, dries off and does something about it who makes a difference.” — Nolan Bushnell, Engineer and Entrepreneur as well as founder of Atari, Inc., Chuck E. Cheese Pizza, and two dozen other companies
2. (#2) – “Your list is not a strategy, it’s the strategy.” — Jeff Walker  |  In the online world, your list is everything.
3. (#33) – Nurturing is everything. This past week I heard a consultant tell his customer that basically nurturing is over-hyped and you really only need to connect with your customers and prospects at the most once a month. Really? Think about a visitor to your website or landing page, once they leave your site, they will never think about it again . . . UNLESS you capture their email address. What will you do with their email address? How about giving them a reason to give you more attention. 
4. (#2) – Your list building effort is the very sharp end of your marketing efforts. Only one thing on your site is 100 percent guaranteed — and that is EVERYONE will eventually leave your website. And it’s important to understand this — if they leave your website without joining your list, the odds are extremely slim that they are going to come back. When you think about your list building that way, all of sudden it starts to make more sense of being creative and helping people make a choice of subscribing or not. 
5. (#20) – Create content that makes your audience always looking forward to your next email. 
6. (#40) – A little surprise or personal touch can really go a long way. This is the most simple way to stand out and build a relationship. 
7. (#34, #39) – A buyer is a buyer but right now, email lists are much more powerful and effective than social media lists. It’s important to understand the differences. Email has the real power. In fact, social media lists aren’t even in the same league. In terms of pur response rates, an email subscriber is worth many times more than a social media subscriber. An email list of 1,000 will easily outperform a Facebook following of 25,000 under most situations. 
8. (#33, #39) –  Remember that your email is landing in a very personal place — the inbox of your reader’s computer or smartphone. If you doubt how private this space is, just think about letting a total stranger into your email inbox. I would dare say most of us feel very protective of our email inbox, and because every email you send is landing in your subscriber’s inbox, you have a lot of power. 
9. (#35) – Be obsessive about building your list. What I mean about list is people who have asked to subscribe to your emails. 
10. (#50) – The vast majority of our buying decisions and behaviors are based on emotion and mental programming. We justify our buying decisions based on that logic. Therefore the power and presentation of your story is of utmost importance. If you lack story and your promotion is weak — you lose. 
11. (#38) -  If we consider someone as an authority figure, we are automatically more influenced by that person.
12. (#9) - If we perceive something as being scarce, we will naturally give it more value.
13. (#51) – Help people solve their problem quickly. Don’t make them wait. You can do this by automating the selling process to align with your buyer’s buying process. Very important!

Resources and References

Daniel H. Pink, To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others – Riverhead, 2012

Bernadette Jiwa, The Fortune Cookie Principle: The 20 Keys To A Great Brand Story – The Story Of Telling Press (2013)

Gary Vaynerchuk, Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How To Tell Your Story  -  Harper Business, 2013

Bernadette Jiwa, Difference: The one-page method for reimagining your business and reinventing your marketing – The Story of Telling Press, 2014

Seth Godin, Permission Marketing – Simon & Schuster, 1999

Seth Godin, Free Prize Inside: How to Make a Purple Cow – Penguin Group (USA) LLC (2004)

Jeff Walker, Launch – Morgan James Publishing (June 24, 2014)

Ed Catmull, How to Unleash Creativity – Fast Company, April 2014

Ed Catmull with Amy Wallace, Creativity, Inc. – Random House, April 2014

Ardath Albee, eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale – Marketing Interactions, Inc., 2010