🦚 Marketing With Costly Signals

Have you heard about the guy who spent $7K on billboards to get a job with Kanye West? No?

Take a look…

In his words, “There’s a lot of competition there these days. I had to get creative.”

This is the perfect example of The Costly Signaling Theory.

In nature, animals use it to attract mates. EX: Peacock spreading its feathers.

In marketing, we use it to catch the attention of prospects and stand out from the competition.

Today, we’ll talk about how you can use it to 10x your outreach and bring your business to the top 1%.

Here’s what we got for ya today:

• 💥 Go Big, Or Go Home
  

• 🏃‍♂️ The Extra Mile
  

• ⚖️ Time Vs Originality

Read Time: 5 min 1 sec

💥 Go Big, Or Go Home

Costly Signaling has 2 jobs:

1. To get attention from prospects

2. To get them to do what you want (buy, sign up, hire you, etc.)

Let’s start with #1.

To get initial attention from your prospect, your Costly Signal needs 3 key components:

1. Effort

2. Proof of concept

3. Creativity

Here are a few of my favorites:

#1 - The Flip Flop Method

In Touch Your Clients Heart, Deb Brown talks about how she sends potential clients a flip flop with a written message like “Just trying to get my foot in the door. Call me.”

Not only did she get an outstanding response rate…

But it’s creative, shows high effort, and proves she’s an expert in client retention and worth investing in.

#2 - The Meme Method

With the meme method, I’ve personally seen a 37% higher response rate to my cold emails.

Essentially, it’s using memes to make people laugh and respond.

Here are a few I’ve used that do pretty well:

PS - click here for 11 cold email templates like these that use the meme method

#3 - The Loom Video

In your cold outreach, ask your prospect if you can send them a 2-minute Loom.

When they say yes, film a Loom with advice on how they could make more money in relation to your service.

EX - If you build websites, send them a Loom critiquing their website and explain how you would improve it to boost conversions.

High effort, proof of concept, and more creativity than others.

The Point: If prospects see you’re willing to put a lot of effort up front, they’ll believe their time investment into you will pay off.

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🏃‍♂️ The Extra Mile

Once you have a prospect’s attention, you need to give them a reason to pay you and not your competition.

This is where the second type of Costly Signaling comes in. It won’t be ‘flashy’ but instead give so much value that they can’t look away.

This looks like:

#1 - Giving things away for free that most people charge for. 

Think: Templates, trials, consultations, etc

#2 - A guarantee. On Monday we talked about how Domino’s promises a pizza delivery in under 30 minutes, or your pizza is free.

#3 - Undeniable Proof

In the end, prospects want to know one thing - if you will you give them what they want.

So, if you can show them proof that you know what you’re doing and that there’s no reason they wouldn’t see the same results… they’re sold.

Personally, I recommend using all of these techniques. At the very least, two.

⚖️ Time Vs Originality

Now, I know what you’re thinking…

Costly Signaling sounds great, but it takes too long to do for every client.

And there’s truth to that.

But in the end, you simply need a system that keeps a balance between time and originality (Costly Signaling).

This means, building an efficient outreach system that includes the Costly Signaling techniques from above.

(To help you do this, here’s my video on how to build systems (SOPS)).

In your system, use these three tricks to maintain Costly Signaling without losing efficiency:

#1 - Automations

Using tools like Zapier, you can automate tasks that seem high-effort to prospects.

For instance, there’s a Zapier automation that sends handwritten cards to clients for $2 a card. You do nothing, but clients feel appreciated.

#2 - Outsourcing

Like we talked about in The Billionaire’s Secret, outsourcing is a must for business.

If you hire someone to find your ideal clients or even to set appointments, you can spend more time on Costly Signals like free consultations.

#3 - Get Picky

The more similar your prospects are, the easier it is to copy + paste responses, learn how to sell them, and understand how to keep their attention.

This means building prospect criteria into your systems, and only solving one specific problem for all of your prospects.