Would You Wrestle For This?
World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) wrestling is not a sport - it is sports entertainment 🤩.
Lead by marketing genius Vince McMahon, he has found a way of selling a unique form of entertainment to a fanbase that do not necessarily find the stories 📚 that they want from traditional sports.
In essence, that is what the WWE sells as entertainment - stories. With the creation of cartoon-like wrestling 'characters' like Ultimate Warrior, Hulk Hogan, and later The Rock, Stone Cold Steve Austin and John Cena, it is a profitable billion 💰 dollar business.
It is not a real sport, but that is possibly what has made it so internationally successful 🌟. The rules are very simple (if in fact wrestling has any real rules), and the characters are larger than life that they can translate all over the world 🌎- 150 countries in more than 30 languages.
Here are 3 marketing concepts from the world of professional wrestling that you can begin using to increase sales in your business today:
1️⃣ Gimmicks and kayfabe
A wrestler’s gimmick is their persona, their character, and their positioning 📍. It is what sets them apart from everyone else and makes them different. In marketing, this is called a Unique ✨ Selling Proposition (USP). It is the embodiment of their brand script 📑. It is also what differentiates you from the competition and clearly communicates 🗣 your value to the marketplace.
A gimmick is closely related to the kayfabe role the wrestler is playing. Kayfabe is a wrestler’s backstory 📖. It is their Genesis - their beginning or their explanation for revealing a new character. The key is being authentic, yet amplifying 🔊 your persona to both, attract 🧲 the right audience, and repel the wrong ones. Marketers like Gary Vee, Brendon Burchard, and Dan Kennedy have all done the same.
2️⃣ Heels and faces
In professional wrestling, “Faces” are the good 👍 guys and “Heels” are the bad guys. All of your marketing should have a “Heel” 👠 or “bad guy” - a villain, a problem or challenge that needs to be solved. Think of it as a monster 👹 that needs to be defeated, or an obstacle to overcome. Then, the “Face” of your promotion gets to be the hero or the solution to that problem.
Heroes’ are cheered because they embody the best qualities we desire in ourselves - bravery, tolerance, justice, truth, and strength 💪 however that looks. On the other hand, villains 😈 are booed because they are evil, mean, inconsiderate, and selfish. Hence, there needs to be a big, ugly monster, a problem that your product or service solves, in all your sales copy. Then, you or your product gets to be the “Face” - the good guy that wins the day.
3️⃣ Swerves
The definition of swerve is “a sudden change in the direction of a storyline to surprise 😯 the fans''. Swerves work to grab attention 👀, hold interest, and create engagement with your marketing and sales copy. You will need to constantly switch things up to keep audience engagement high ⬆️ if you are writing long-form sales copy, or if you are structuring a product launch sequence.
This includes providing the unexpected - adding in twists and turns to the plot, and peppering your copy with conflicts and drama 🎭. Simplifying, it changes the pace of your copy as well as the introduction of new villains or problems, and being conscious of the “S-Curve” that renews interest 🤔 in a long-form sales piece.
Are you a fan of professional wrestling? Let us know who is your favourite wrestler of all time in the comments 👇👇👇😎.
References:
Henry, J. 2019, June 21. Marketing Lessons from the World of Professional Wrestling: How You can Body Slam the Competition and Cash in to Higher Profits.
Wattanajantra, A. 2014, April 9. The WWE: A Wrestling Storytelling Content Marketing Machine. Metia.
