This blog post is based more on how I have bought rather than how I have sold. The basic concept is that when you hear about a product or service from two or more independent sources, you are more likely to buy it.

The threshold varies by the kind of product you are looking at. When it is a low touch item like a book, two independent recommendations are enough. When it involves higher cost and has higher impact, like a phone, it might be five recommendations. For something life changing like a keto diet, it might be ten (I must mention I tried keto for half a day and gave up, not least because I figured I don’t really need it – I’m barely 3-4 kg overweight).

The important point to note is that the recommendations need to come from independent sources – if two people who you didn’t expect to have a similar taste in books were to recommend the same book, the second of these recommendations is likely to create an “aha moment” (ok I’m getting into consultant-speak now), and that is likely to drive a purchase (or at least trying a Kindle sample).

In some ways, exposure to the same product through independent sources is likely to create a feeling of a self-fulfilling prophecy. “Alice is also using this. Bob is also using this” will soon go into “everybody seems to be using it. I should also use it”.

So what does this mean to you if you are a seller? Basically you need to hit your target audience through various channels. I had mentioned in my post earlier this week about how branding creates a “position of strength“, and how direct sales is normally hard because it is done through a position of weakness.

The idea is that before you hit your audience with a direct sale, you need to “warm them up” with your brand, and you need to do this through various channels. Your brand needs to impact on your audience through multiple independent channels, so that it has become a self-fulfilling prophecy before you approach to make the sale.

What these precise channels are depends on your business and the product that you’re trying to sell, but the important thing is that they are independent. So for example, putting advertisements in various places won’t help since the target will treat all of them as coming from the same source.

Finally, where is the “triangle” in this marketing? It is in the idea that you complete the branding and sales by means of “triangulation”. You send out vectors in seemingly random directions trying to build your brand, and they will get reflected till a time when they intersect, or “triangulate”. Ok I know my maths here is messy ant not up to my usual standard, but I guess you know what I’m getting at!

 

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