There are some absolute truths about marketing that many entrepreneurs, managers and business owners either don’t know, never learn or ignore.
Whether you market marbles, matches or mobile phones, these five lessons apply.
- You can’t be for everyone. Stop trying to sell the world. Stop trying to market to a broad audience. Narrow, super focused segments of a market means that the community you serve will care. I recently saw wine for vegans. (some wine get filtered with fish bladders, gelatin from cows, albumin from egg whites or casein which is an animal protein). Vegan wines are for a narrow community of wine consumers, but those who are vegan and want to drink wine will care and search for your product. It will be an easy sell if you can make them aware of your product.
- Blah blah blah – I’m boring. When you act like everyone else in your category, no one will notice you. How can you be meaningfully different? The charity that is a restaurant will stand out from the crowd. The superhero cape company that has employees wearing capes with superpowers each day isn’t a boring environment to work. The snack food company that promotes kindness to define how they differ from the competition. Just because everyone has a hospitality suite at a trade show doesn’t mean you can’t have a bowling night instead. Break out of the blah, blah, blahs. Marketing should be an antidote to boring.
- People buy for emotional, not rational reasons. You can give me all the facts in the world about how you make your product, but in the end, most buyers make a purchase for an emotional not necessarily a rational reason. Some buyers make deals because they know they won’t be fired if they use a well-known vendor. (No one was ever fired buying from IBM). Some buyers feel good about doing business with another company because it is working on a sustainable effort (even if I don’t understand the impact). Marketing isn’t about the truth, the facts or reality – it is often about feelings. Being empathic toward your customers and understanding the human being – not the title helps. Ask this question: how will they feel buying from me and what story will they tell others? If I understand the story they want to tell – I may be more successful making the sale.
- Your product better fix my problem. I don’t buy things that don’t do a job. In the late 1990’s, a researcher was hired to help McDonald’s sell more milkshakes. He looked at the data and found that half of all milkshakes sell in the morning. He was perplexed until he figured out that what mattered to these customers was that they could drive and get some nourishment with one hand. McDonald’s began making more breakfast oriented shakes with this insight. Imagine milkshakes doing a specific job like allowing me to get nourishment while I’m driving.
- Communicate with people who raise their hand and say yes. I will be a far more effective marketer with 100 people who care about me and my product than 10,000 who don’t. The value of getting permission means that someone wants to hear from you and will be expecting your email or message. So when I get an email from a winery I love, who makes only 2,000 cases per year, I’ll be paying attention. We have a connection, and I want to know what the latest vintage will be like, and I’m eager to get her message and offer. That’s very different from spam in my inbox.
If you want to see more of these truths, you might enjoy watching this presentation.
Do you need help understanding how these truths might apply to your business? You can set up some time to connect with me through Clarity.fm. It is simple. Just click here and click set up a call.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/xtrarant/with/2207094409/ Jason Borneman
