As a business owner and marketer, if you don’t distinguish yourself from what others are doing…
Yeah, yeah… I know… I’ll go broke.
Well… yes… but that wasn’t what I was going to say.
If you don’t distinguish yourself from what others are doing… someone else will do it first!
I’m bringing this to your attention now, lest you be drawn into the wrong conclusion that time is on your side.
In this squeeze page video article series (see links at the bottom), we’ve looked at a variety of techniques that probably sound odd, even kooky. And they are. Most people writing on this subject would be teaching you things like, “open with a thought-provoking question,” or “have a strong call-to-action,” or “agitate the problem.”
None of which is bad advice, but it’s not going to set you apart from your competition.
But you might be thinking, “well… this all sounds a bit avant-garde… I’ll try something a bit more traditional first.” And that’s the critical error that you must avoid.
Because if you want to be the person in your industry who is seen as fun, novel, interesting, mold-breaking – all the things that create armies of loyal customers – you have to do it FIRST!
If someone else in your industry positions themselves this way before you, it’s hard to do the same without looking like a copycat.
The likelihood is that you have a small window of opportunity to own this space and become a trailblazer in your industry.
But wait too long and you’ll find yourself jostling elbows with the rest of the herd, watching someone else lead the charge.
If you want to play it safe, I suggest you go find an article called “7 Ways to Make a Modest Amount of Money Without Annoying Anyone.” Otherwise, you need to pull out all the stops and start shaking up your audience.
Welcome to DISEQUILIBRIUM…
Disrupt Your Audience
Disequilibrium, in its broadest sense, means a lack of balance. But I prefer the definition offered by psychologist, Jean Piaget. To paraphrase…
The experience of a discrepancy between something new and something already known or believed.
If you’re not giving your audience a sense of disequilibrium when they watch your squeeze page videos, you’re not trying hard enough. If they watch your videos and it’s just another version of every other squeeze page video they’ve ever seen, you’ll be forgotten in five minutes.
First and foremost, you should be looking for a way to DISRUPT your audience. Upend their belief system. Tell them something that flies against everything they thought they knew.
Every single one of your viewers will click the “play” button with the conviction that they already know what you’re going to say. They’ve been watching advertisements their whole life and the vast majority have nothing new or memorable to say.
Which means that, when you disrupt their understanding of something, you put them in a state of disequilibrium.
And this COMPELS them to keep watching until they understand what the heck you’re talking about and are able to regain a state of balance.
A good example of this could be seen on one of our older squeeze pages in which we implied that using testimonial videos could be HARMFUL to your conversion rates. It sounds ridiculous. Everyone KNOWS that social proof is an important marketing strategy. But by indicating that the opposite was true, we disrupted our audience and got them to pay attention.
Tip: Testimonials, most of the time, work very well. But we proved that they can be counterproductive when used to promote a sales webinar. You can learn more about this subject on our 12 Secrets webinar: https://www.webinarjam.com/vid/12secrets/host-a-webinar/
That’s not a ground-breaking disruption, granted, but even a modest disturbance in your viewer’s equilibrium can have a powerful effect.
Push Your Audience
Is it a little bit mean to trip your audience up like that?
Well… a little bit, perhaps. But you’re going to take the curse off it by catching them on the other side.
This is not about telling your viewer that everything they know is wrong and it’s all a waste of time, and then signing off, leaving them to twist in the wind. Once you push your viewer off-balance, you MUST then offer them a support.
Take a brick out of the wall that is their belief system, and then replace it with a stronger, sturdier, more useful brick.
For instance, in this series, I’ve repeatedly brought to your attention the idea that the traditional way of creating squeeze page videos is ineffective. Maybe the thought that your current style of squeeze page video presentation is somewhat inadequate, hasn’t sat well with you.
Maybe a lot of the content in this article series has flown in the face of that $7 report you purchased a couple of years back.
But I didn’t push you off balance for the sake of it. It was with the goal of getting your attention and teaching you a better, more effective style of squeeze page video.
It’s a process that’s not always comfortable for the recipient, but then it’s not our job to tickle people’s ears. Not if we want to show people a better way that will improve their business or their life in some way.
Think about some of the things your product or service does that’s unique in your industry. What tired, stuck-in-the-past, methods or beliefs does your business overturn?
Those are the disruption points that you should use to push your audience and distinguish yourself from the rest.
And Then Inspire Your Audience
When you challenge someone’s belief in something, one of two things happens…
The person either rejects the new truth outright and sticks rigidly to their old way of thinking and doing things.
Or they recognize that they need to make a change and they teeter with uncertainty, unsure how to assimilate their new understanding and turn it into something useful.
The reason more businesses don’t use disequilibrium in their marketing is because they don’t like the idea that a portion of their audience will be turned off. But as we saw in part four of this article series this is not something to fear.
Better to have 100 loyal, lifetime customers, than 200 indifferent consumers who’ll forget you in a matter of days.
Don’t concern yourself with the audience members that you lose. Focus, instead, on the people who are attracted to your new paradigm and inspire them to turn their newfound knowledge into something useful.
Disequilibrium isn’t a bad thing. It’s what happens to everyone, right before they take a big jump forward in their knowledge and understanding.
When you bring your audience into this state, they’re ready for you to offer them something to lean against. Something to re-establish their sense of balance.
In short, they’re ready to take the next step towards learning more about your solution. And if that next step is to hand over their email address… that’s now a much easier decision to make.
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Given a choice, people want to be led by something or someone that is beyond what they see day in and day out.
When you were a kid in school, being disruptive got you detention. But in the world of online commerce, being disruptive gets your customers.
Be bold.
Be inspirational.
Go out there and stir up some trouble. 🙂
In the next, and final, article in this series, we’re going to show the audience our beauty scars. Bring your courage – we’re doing it too.
Successful Squeeze Page Videos: Part One – The Hook
Successful Squeeze Page Videos: Part Two – Vicarious Adventures
Successful Squeeze Page Videos: Part Three – The Cliffhanger
Successful Squeeze Page Videos: Part Four – Destroying Expectations
Successful Squeeze Page Videos: Part Five – The Zeigarnik Effect