If you are the Chicago Bulls, and you really want LeBron James to leave Cleveland and play with you, evidently, now is when you pull out all the stops.

Rock Star Marketing Alert!

You don’t ask LeBron James to come to Chicago and play for the Bulls. You don’t beg him to come to Chicago (Like the Knicks and Nets did), you dare him. “LeBron, the fans of Chicago have a question for you,” reads the two-page ad that ran in Thursday’s Akron Beacon Journal, James’ hometown paper. “Can you cast a shadow this big?”

The image is of an outline that looks just like Michael Jordan’s, classic flying through the air ball in one hand image that we are all so familiar with, spread out over the Chicago cityscape.

Dreamed up by sports-loving ad guys at the city’s Leo Burnett agency and paid for by Burnett, it was the culmination of a four-day campaign featuring a fresh challenge each day. Here is a description of the other days of the campaign from the Chicago Tribune:

Monday, they sent to his house the classic red, white and black Air Jordans and asked if he could fill those shoes.

Tuesday it was a case featuring seven empty ring boxes, representing one more championship than Jordan won here, and the question, “Can you fill these boxes?”

Wednesday was a mock-up of a Chicago Tribune 10 years hence — still going strong, by the way — and the headline “Sweet Throne, Chicago: With Title No. 7, It’s Officially King James’ Court.”

This is a pretty bold move, don’t you think? I really like day 1! Imagine, you’re LeBron James… You receive a package containing a pair of Classic Air Jordans. Inscribed inside the box top is the following:

You’re a King, But

Can you live up to a legend?

Can you take on the greatest challenge in sports:
Look History in the eyes every ight.

And refuse to blink.

The Fans of Chicago Have a Question For You.

DO YOU DARE TO FILL THESE SHOES?

Now here’s a question for you: What bold move could you make right now that could propel your business forward. It might not be as high profile as this all out campaign to get LeBron James, but what can you put to work for you right now?

This is part 4 of my Marketing Like a Rock Star Series. What do you have that can be your single most powerful door opener (conversation starter)?

Did you play college ball in the Pac 10? Traveled to all 7 continents? Did Kobe Bryant crash into you when saving a ball from out of bounds? We all have ‘em, now it’s time to start using ‘em…

Among the friends and family who attended services for Knack lead singer Doug Fieger was Sharona Alperin, the real-life inspiration for “My Sharona.” Alperin, who dated Fieger for more than three years, toured around the world with the Knack and is now a real estate agent in Los Angeles who makes wise use of the domain name mysharona.com.

It is important to leverage what you have.

In my bio, I always mention my Film Production background. Why? Not everyone can say they worked with Julia Roberts on “Pretty Woman”. It gets people’s attention. Once the door is open, it’s up to me to close the deal.

For Sharona – her opener is and probably will always be the song “My Sharona”.

Here is part of the press release from Sharona, released after Doug’s passing:

Doug Fieger wrote a song about me that changed both of our lives forever. “My Sharona” became an iconic smash hit, and even though Doug and I didn’t end up together, we remained close friends through all these years. His searing wit, love of music and ability to recall the B side of any 45, his gift for making friends and keeping them for decades, and his incredible optimism in the face of the toughest challenge remained vital until the very end.

The door is open so now Sharona wants you to know about her very successful real-estate business.

Sharona Aperin is one of the most successful and sought after real-estate professionals in Southern California. A life-long Los Angeles resident, Alperin has carved out a niche as the go to source among the entertainment community however she is happy to help anyone find their dream home.

Alperin attributes some of her success to the fact that when she was only 17, she was immortalized in the Knack’s 1979 hit single “My Sharona”.

Sharona believes that “‘My Sharona’ has had an impact on my ability to understand the entertainer’s mind, there’s something simpatico. You’ve got to care to the n’th degree. You can’t drop the ball for one minute.” I sell “the most emotional product on the market, because a star’s home is their only safe haven.”

My friend Brent Bye over at Box Wrench creates engine rebuilding DVD’s. He had a production deal with Holly (the carburetor guys) – to produce a nitrous injection kit installation viideo – the same one used in the Film “Fast & Furious” (2009), starring Vin Diesel. Do you think he used that bit of info to open some more doors? You bet he did!

Question is – “What can you leverage to open some doors for you?”

The 1st 2 posts dealt primarily with how Rock Stars enroll their audience, building and solidifying relationships, before “closing” the sale.

In this installment of “Marketing Like A Rock Star”, I am going to take a different approach – talking about a Rock Star building her social capital and using an ethical bribe to increase her Twitter following!

The “who” in this story is Tina Sugandh, the “Tabla Girl”. Tina and I have been friends (in the social networking sense) for years going back to MySpace.

Tina has an amazing story. She has been performing with her family since she was 5 years old – this is from her website bio:

Growing up in New Jersey (her parents moved from Bombay when she was five months old), Tina Sugandh was immersed in music. Naturally gifted with an enchanting voice, Geeta, the matriarch of her close-knit family sang on the radio and at various functions (when she wasn’t carrying out her responsibilities as a marketing professional); while the patriarch, Kanaiya, was a charismatic and charming master of ceremony, singer, and comedian (when he wasn’t teaching at his University). Together, they were an enthralling couple, entertaining friends at gatherings and parties.

Tina and her sister, Seema, traveled with their parents to all of their performances. It was at the age of five that Tina had found her calling. “The first time my parents allowed me to sing on stage was at a fair,” she recalls. “I was five and I sang a ghazal, which is a type of song you can sing only if you have a trained voice. As soon as I got up there, I tried to take over. My parents were surprised when they realized I was trying to steal the spotlight! They recognized that I loved performing and wanted to be a part of the show. They encouraged me and supported my love of music and performing. They also kept me focused and gave me a strong work ethic by insisting that I could continue performing as long as my grades at school remained high.” That started “The Sugandh Family” music legacy.

Like in every great story, sometimes there is tragedy. On December 3rd of 2009, Tina’s “Ma” Geeta lost her battle with breast Cancer.

This, however, is where this take on Rockstar Marketing takes a turn – by using the following techniques Tina accomplishes 3 (three) different marketing goals:

1. She gets people to visit her site
2. Has visitors take action using an ethical bribe, and
3. Raises awareness of a good cause!

Let’s break these down for you so you, too, can use them in your own business.

1.  Getting people to visit tinasugandh.com

Tina uses the “giveaway” (I like to call it the “ethical bribe”) method. Visit the website and I will give you a free download of my new song. Using email and social media sites, Tina made the offer of the free download…

Once you get to the site, here’s what you see:

In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month, get a FREE DOWNLOAD of the what Tina calls the most important song…

Notice how #3 starts right at the beginning. We click the link and we are instructed how, exactly to claim our free download.

2. Getting Visitors to take action with the ethical bribe

This is so great! Here Tina reinforces her calling attention to a good cause and gives instructions on the action the visitor must take in order to receive their free music download.. This from her site:

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month! In honor of those whose lives have been affected by cancer, Tina has written and recorded what she calls the most heartfelt song of her career, entitled “Snake Charmer”, and would love to share it with you all. To receive your free download link, join Twitter and follow these easy instructions:

No I’m not going to post the instructions – you’ll have to visit her site: Tabla Girl’s Free Download – to do that.

So, in order to receive the free download, you first must follow Tina on Twitter – Great way to build your follower list on Twitter, don’t you think?!

3. Raising Awareness of a good cause

Now how about using your platform, in addition to giving your clients/customers/fans/followers something of value for free, but also taking the time and using thee opportunity to introduce them to something that is meaningful to you. Just as Breast Cancer Awareness means a lot to Tina.

Do you think you can apply these 3 steps to a promotion in your business?

If you have found this post helpfful or insightful – please leave a comment or Tweet it using the button above.

Thanks,

Lennie

While “cruising” around YouTube, I stumbled across this video of Christina Aguilera performing live in Sydney Australia. Watching this video (not my normal fare, but damn can she perform), I noticed how she uses so many sales and trainer techniques. I touched on this before in the post: How to Market Like a Rock Star!

What are these, you ask? Good question. So, I’ll provide the answer…

As any good trainer understands, when you are presenting from the stage, you want to enroll and engage your audience, not talk “at” them. How do you do this?

1. Enrolling questions. This engages your audience and makes them feel like they are part of the training, not merely a listener. Christina asks, “Are we having fun tonight, so far, Australia?” Loud roar of applause – the crowd is engaged, step 1. Next question: “Are there any sexy males in the audience?” Enrolling the guys first since she’s talking to them, and secondly, the women who are responding to the call for sexy guys. Pretty clever, huh?
2. Audience participation. This keeps the audience active and engaged. You sit and listen to a symphony, but you participate at a rock show! First she introduces her male dancers and then (with subtlety) demands a response (in the form of applause) from the audience. Next she asks for a volunteer and sends her dancers into the crowd in search of a male volunteer. Like I said, audience participation. One additional benefit of the volunteer aspect is that it personalizes it. Everyone in the crowd (in this case, the men, for sure), live a bit vicariously through the volunteer.
3. Including the whole audience. When presenting to a group, it is extremely important to make everyone feel included. Christina does this by using the whole stage.

In this video it is also obvious that, yes, sex sells, but beyond that, Christina uses a lot of other presenter and selling techniques. How many examples can you catch? Would love to read your “catches” in the comments.

Not quite but I’ll tell you what. If you pay attention to any great rock front man or woman, you will notice a couple of very clever tactics.

Dateline Sunday July 20th… So there I was indulging in a guilty pleasure… Let me back up. The first concert that I ever attended was a KISS concert in 1977 when they were at their pinnacle (I have seen them 5 times since, twice on halloween!)

Like I said, guilty pleasure… So sunday I popped in a DVD “Kiss w/ the Melbourne Symphony. Kiss, the garishly made up rock band (with tons of pop hooks) with a symphony… Should be interesting, I thought.

It’s amazing what a different perspective will do. The DVD was tons of fun (guilty pleasure, remember…) but I noticed all the sales, marketing and trainer tricks that lead singer Paul Stanley was using and realized that all the great Rock Bands do this to create the rabid, evangelist seeking following.

Acknowledge!

The first thing any good Rocker will do is acknowledge the fans and thank them: Paul Stanley on the DVD, “We had offers from a lot of Cities to play with a symphony, but we had such a great time here last time, we just had to come back!”

Giving your audience ownership: “You made this song popular, we may have written it but this song is yours!” – Yep, Paul Stanley said this too.

Wow that’s powerful!

Setting the Context

If you’re going to sell, let the audience know and get their permission first.

Never, ever lay into your sales pitch without taking the time to acknowledge your audience and getting to know them first!

This was a Tweet I received (sort of, since I can’t find the tweet or who twittered..)

At a bar-b-que: Me: beautiful day isn’t it? Other guy: Heard of Amway? Never, ever, ever!

“We’re gonna slow this next song down a bit. Is that alright with you?

Permission marketing creates loyalty!

What’s in it for me?

Again any decent trainer or marketer will lay out up front what valuable stuff is coming for the audience. “Over the next hour (or whatever) I’m going to give you/tell you about these things that will rock your world!

Paul Stanley: “We’re gonna rock your asses off!”

Now, if you make this promise, you better deliver!

Involving your Audience – leads to inclusion!

Rockers do this: Sing alongs, clap alongs.

Here’s a great example of involving the audience. In the 80′s I saw Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin fame on tour solo. When it came time to play the Led Zepp classic “Stairway to Heaven” the singer on the tour took a break. On stage a single spotlight stayed on an empty mike. So what happened? A chorus of 15,000 + sang instead. Amazing! At that point, if we hadn’t already, we were all drinking the Koolade. Don’t leave anyone behind.

Leading Questions

“Do you wanna Rock?” – what a clever way to involve/include your audience. How about if you are marketing razors… “Has anyone ever cut themselves shaving?”

Demand a response!

Audience participation part deux: Ever heard this one? “Does anyone wanna ROCK!” then after the first response: “What?! I can’t her you!”. This, as any trainer will tell you is called “Demanding a response!”

Do you want to leave your audience out? Next time you are attending a sales meeting, seminar, teleclass, whatever, pay attention to the speaker for, in my opinion, a fatal mistake. The presenter/speaker asks a question and the audience doesn’t really respond but they move on anyway. Guess what, they just left all those non responders behind.

Go to one of T. Harv Eker’s, Tony Robbins or Alex Mandossian’s events and watch masters at keeping the audience involved at work.

Or just go to a great rock show! And when you do, pay attention, you’ll be surprised at all you can learn from a ROCKSTAR!

And remember, it doesn’t matter how many tricks you employ, if you don’t, in the end, deliver the promised “goods”!