No-tell Marketing: Four Techniques to Make the Sale Without Telling the Tale

Go to any bookstore and you will see the shelves filled with books on salesmanship. Everyone seems to have some kind of advice on how to sell things and more specifically, how to sell things that nobody wants to people that very often don’t need them.

For sure, how to sell ice to an Eskimo is a hot topic. But a subject you don’t see discussed nearly as much is how to sell things which people may very well want or may very well need—but which fall into one or more of the “unmentionable” categories. These might be things you can’t fully discuss—or things you can’t show. In some cases, they may even be things you can’t name. But you need to sell them anyway.

So how do you do it? Well, believe it or not, this challenge is not as uncommon as you might think and it is a challenge which has been tackled many times in the past. Advertisers need to do this all the time. And over time, they have honed a few time-tested techniques which have proven to make sales like this not only possible but also very effective. Here are four of those techniques:

1. Create a mental analogy.One of the most brilliant ad campaigns in recent history was 7Up’s “Uncola” pitch in the 1970s. At the time, the soft drink market was dominated by Coke and Pepsi’s cola brands. Without directly badmouthing the competition, 7Up managed to craft a mental equivalency between the monopoly of the cola industry and the mass tyranny of large societal superstructures. Through the simple use of one key catchphrase, 7Up positioned itself as different and daring—and proud to be so. The mental analogy was critical to sales because the image of rebellion characterized much of society at that time and it was particularly effective in appealing to the large and expanding youth market.
2. Cast the corporation in a positive light.When your product has some negatives, you sure don’t want to talk about them even though a lot of people might already know about them. So what do you do instead? One very successful strategy is to focus on the corporation itself by cultivating a positive corporate reputation. Create a focus on the integrity of the company and the positive things it does for the community. Talk about how the corporation seeks to better the circumstances of the local residents and the initiatives it sponsors to improve the local cities and towns. Stress the company’s philanthropic advances and its charity work. By focusing on the positives of the company itself, the advertisers will see those same positives trickle down to the products produced by the corporation. And the product negatives will be trumped and in many cases, eradicated completely.
3. Use an outrageous image to paint a mind picture.Talk about withstanding the test of time! It was back in the early sixties when magazine ads first appeared showing a hot blonde in a boxing ring wearing only a bra, shorts, high heels, and boxing gloves. A ridiculous image? Maybe, but that gal who was a knockout in her Maidenform sure sold a lot of bras back then. The advertisers took advantage of a time-tested memory trick—the association of something you want to remember with an outrageous mental image. And the key to the trick is that the memory association becomes stronger when the image is more outrageous. In the Maidenform campaign, the image was as Freudian as it was outrageous, capturing the concurrent themes of strength, independence, and of course, sex. The appeal of this ad campaign was indisputable and also long-lasting, as it ran for more than twenty years.
4. Sell by implication. As early as the Sixties, Right Guard was mostly a manly brand of deodorant. As such, its advertising would generally emphasize male attributes; i.e., strength, virility, etc. So then why was it that one of Right Guard’s most successful ads showed a woman’s hand clutching a can of Right Guard aerosol spray? The ad promised a tough solution to perspiration. But what it showed conveyed a deeper message—a message that couldn’t be overtly spoken, at least not back then. The implication of a sexual tie-in with the product was powerful enough to supersede less dramatic product benefits. Dry armpits are great—but some other things are even better.

There is more than one way to skin a cat—and more than one way to sell. The conventional approach where you show the customer a product, talk about it, and tout its benefits is all well and good—if you are allowed to do it. But such is not always the case. When you can’t say everything, then you need to be more subtle. And when you use the right techniques, it can become very easy to make the sale without fully telling the tale.

About the Author: Marni Mutrux is a staff writer for v2cigs.com.V2 Cigs offers the industry’s most innovative electronic cigarettes. An e-cigarette is a non-smoking alternative to smoking tobacco cigarettes.

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