Gap Marketing Secrets

GAP MARKETING

GAP Marketing is one of the most powerful and easy methods to use “core models”.  The GAP Model will allow you to understand why your medical services are not selling, why your sales copy doesn’t work the way you expect, or why your headlines are sometimes powerless.

“GAP” refers to the word gap as found in the direction, but we further define the word it as:  “A wide difference between an expectation level and an experience level of a person.”

While GAP is seemingly only a three-letter word, as a concept it offers the most profound insight and explanation for human behavior and reactions imaginable.  The reason the GAP Model works is because “people make decisions by comparison”.  They are coming from “what you say” to “where they are”.  If the difference between the two is large enough, so that they feel their current condition is unacceptable, then they will react positively and you will generate a sale, or conversion to your practice.  You will not get a lead, an appointment, a trial offer, or a sale if the prospect’s differential is too small.

When you were younger, you probably heard about Newton’s third medical of motion, which goes as follows: ”Every action produces an equal and opposite reaction”.

For marketing and sales purposes, let us change that to:

“Every emotional GAP produces an equal and opposite reaction”.

Advertising or direct mail packages are subject to the following after people read your materials and compare it to their condition:

· No Emotional GAP – equals no reaction, because there is no gap to fill between where they are and where they could be.
· A Small Emotional GAP – produces an acceptable disequilibrium, and little or no action is taken to close the gap.
· A Large Emotional GAP - produces an unacceptability wide difference necessitating a need to fill the gap in order to regain emotional or conditional equilibrium.  If you prove your service is a solution to the situation, an action is taken and a sale occurs.

Your marketing goal is to create the largest GAP possible in your marketing and sales materials.  GAPs are Power.  Power to causes action.  Power to make things happen.  Sales copy that doesn’t create large GAPs is impotent!

Now, let us apply this to sales and marketing situations

The reason why some of your headlines do not work is because they cause NO GAP, or simply cause a SMALL GAP in the prospect’s mind and emotions.

The reason your sales copy doesn’t work as you want is the same reason:  “because they cause NO GAP, or cause a SMALL GAP in the prospect’s mind and emotions.”  In either case, the differential is too close to where they already are in their mind…in which case there is no reason to react.  And, the reason your offers don’t work, as you want is the same reason:  “because they cause NO GAP, or cause too SMALL a GAP, in the prospect’s mind and emotions.”

Check for yourself, the next time you see your competitor’s display ad, review the material, study the headline, the copy, the offer being proposed, or the telemarketing script through the “lenses of our GAP Model” and see if it creates an absolutely unacceptable “personal gap” for the prospect.  When you make sales that are based on SMALL GAPs, you wont get many returns after they receive the initial medical service.  If you reinforce, and expand the GAP when they receive the service, half-hearted initial visits will go down or disappear.

Sometimes, direct marketers create Negative GAPs.  For example, look at the difference between a 30-day guarantee and a 1-year guarantee.  A 30-day guarantee is such a small time period; it creates urgency for the new patient to act on the thought that you put into their mind.  What thought did you put into their mind? The thought that says to their conscious mind: “I only have 30 days to return this product…I better “re-decide” quickly if I really want or need it.”  They now have a rather large Negative GAP confronting their rational mind.  You, in effect, are confronting them with an URGENCY situation to re-decide if they should keep it.

The desire is to create a reaction in the reader’s mind, which says:  “If I don’t act quickly, I will have to pay for something I may not need or use.”  Without enough reinforcement time for using your product, they end up with a GAP too small to justify keeping the product.  Ultimately, this creates an interesting dynamic:  The higher the sales price, the greater the negative GAP. The higher the Negative GAP, the higher the returns.  This is especially important for those physicians who provide a full line of products.

A graphical model of the GAP concept will allow you to easily compare and evaluate situations at a conscious level.  So let us explore the 3 GAP conditions in that format.