Can you emphasize a statistic, number or fact about your brand that competitors ignore?
I don’t often think about an air spray freshener regarding hours of odor-free living. I think of the 6 oz in the spray. But the folks at Glade emphasized how long you’ll experience a fresh-smelling space? They were selling 7 hours of freshness for $.99
As a toy marketer, we would communicate a game as offering 2,532 hours of fun for a family. We emphasized a calculation based on how many hours a family and friends would play a game over several years. By using a specific number, not a rounded one, it seemed more truthful and authentic. (we had facts to back it up the stats too)
Steve Jobs famously promoted the new iPod, not for its megabytes or advanced technology. He sold it as 10,000 songs in your pocket.
Millions of Hours of Support
When I worked with a non-profit who served the developmentally disadvantaged, we realized that the number of people we helped was small – just about 75 severely disabled children.
But when we thought about the hours of support we offered, we realized that weekly, we help one or two people in a family, caring for a child with special needs. And on the weekends, we supported them with other services. When you calculate the care for a family, teacher support and the disabled community, it turns out that over a few years, we offered 1,000,000 hours of relief. So, instead of asking for donations to support 75 children, we communicated the 1,000,000 hours per year of service we provided.
In coaching a job seeker, he told me that he had oversite for the technology running at 62 warehouses that managed $28.7MM of inventory. Instead of promoting the IT support for 62 locations, he repositioned his work in keeping track of $28.7MM of value. $28.7MM is a more significant and impressive number than 62.
Marketing by the Numbers
In the wine industry, my former employer had concerns that their product was made of plastic and would communicate a negative impression. When I heard that their corks were 64% air, I thought that that was a better statistic to use. Air is neutral. It is a positive descriptor, and at 64% air, it helped us de-emphasized the negative.
Can you find an unusual statistic to help define your brand by emphasizing the benefit to the user?
- Smiles created
- Hours of happiness
- Weeks of peace of mind
- Years of services expressed creatively
When you are marketing a product or service, can you measure the benefit with a different measuring stick that matters to your customer? Marketing succeeds when you tell a story that is a breath of fresh air.
You can set up a time to chat with me about your marketing challenges using my calendar. Email me jeffslater@themarketingsage.com Call me. 919 720 0995. The conversation is free and we can explore if working together makes sense. Try my new chat feature on my site if you have a quick question.
Photo by Jeffrey Slater
