This is the Inception strategy of marketing: getting people to suddenly realize they need to be interested in a thing (product, idea, industry, etc) to encourage them to start their journey to learn more (which is when the marketing machine works so effectively).

In the movie, the goal wasn’t to get the target to buy or do something, but to implant the idea that they would be happier if they focused more on being their own person instead of always being seen as the son of someone powerful. That simple idea was all it would take for everything else to fall into place and for billions of dollars to change hands.

Since the marketing machine is better able to lead someone down through the funnel, your goal is to plant an idea in people’s minds that will lead them to that machine.

Need to get people serious your digital outsourcing offering who’s primary goal is to extend services at a lower cost? There are lots of ways to create that interest and demand: a guerrilla marketing event in the business center (flash mob, drones building a tower, free coffee truck), a PR campaign to plant stories in business newspapers of executive success stories stemming from lowered costs, presentations at local exec mastermind groups about how the smart move in an uncertain economy is to lower costs at all costs, deliver TED Talk-like videos via Facebook about how the smart executive should be focused on getting the most out of their budgets, promote similar stories on LinkedIn, getting a local exec into HuffPo or similar sites talking about their view of the future of the industry including finding ways to add skill without adding budget (and having them share with their networks), etc.

Once incepted, they will start looking for articles, ask for briefings, search for solutions, at which point they will end up typing in a keyword you rank well for, read a web page with your tracking pixel on it, leading them to asking for a case study or ebook, leading to leading to leading to.

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