Marketing is like a slow-acting medicine. It isn’t going to relieve your headache instantly. It can’t immediately fix all of your problems. You are going to have to invest over time to get potential customers aware, interested and engaged. And marketing isn’t something you do once and it fixes your pain forever.
But marketing can be more effective if you follow a few prescriptive ideas:
- THINK NARROW: Create products or services for a very narrow and distinctive group. If you make sofas for everyone, you have a big target to reach that is expensive. If you make sofas for dog owners because it resists stains, you narrow the field. If you make sofas for the elderly that helps them get up from their seat, you are serving a specific audience’s needs. It is always best to start with a narrow and specific community, audience or target, and then decide on how to make something that serves them.
- THINK DIFFERENTLY: I don’t see the purpose of creating another product in a category that already exists. When you think differently, you are highlighting a unique feature or aspect of what you do. Cookies made with extra protein, vegetarian wine made without any animal-based products to filter the wine or vacuum cleaners without bags that never lose suction. Don’t be another “me too” product on the shelf. It is a waste of your time unless your product is much quicker, cheaper or faster.
- THINK HUMAN: If you are using email or clever marketing mailings, you want your potential customers to feel they are getting useful information from a real person, not emails from a company. Humor can help and be playful and a little silly. The voice of your marketing shouldn’t be corporate but human. Focus on only one core message but share it naturally. Watch how Kettle & FIre, a bone-broth soup company uses humor to engage and connect with their customers. Strange thing but humans tend to respond to human communications. Don’t pretend you are a corporation. Be real and communicate like a human, not a business.
- THINK PERSISTENT: It can take a few times for a message to catch my attention or get me to explore. One-time emails or physical mailings rarely work. It is over time where marketing becomes very useful IF you have a simple and clear message. You also must talk to the right audience. I don’t care how many times you try to sell me steak; I’m not biting on your message. (I don’t eat red meat). If you send me information about Beyond Meat, a new plant-based product, I may give it a try. Entrepreneurs and business leaders who succeed don’t quit.
If someone wants your marketing to work overnight, take two aspirins and call me in the morning.
Got a marketing headache? Maybe I can help and I do make house calls. Call me at 919 720 0995 or email me at jeffslater@themarketingsage.com – or book some time to talk on my calendar.
Photo by Ehimetalor Unuabona on Unsplash
