I get questions from readers who are struggling to understand marketing. Many of those new to the profession, assume that there are a set of rules that if you follow them, will lead to marketing success.
- Tell me the rule of thumb on how much a brand should spend on marketing.
- Tell me a rule that guides my decision on the mix of marketing activities.
- Tell me a rule that will leverage my social media activity and make my video go viral.
Marketing simply doesn’t work that way.
You have to find your path to deliver value to customers. You have to make up your rules, or you’ll look like everyone else. Not only do you have to break the rules, but you probably want to play by a different set.
Think of marketing this way – you want to have your own time zone where only your brand exists.
New Rules and Market Segments
Rules existing through a retrospective lens. Markets change and the rules that used to apply, no longer matter. While it is true that some business segments are slower to change, don’t think that healthcare won’t get Uber-ized soon along with areas like banking and financial services. Disruption is needed when you have broken systems based on antiquated rules. You need a revolution when businesses don’t serve customers. Doing old things better isn’t the answer.
You need a fresh lens to view a situation.
When I see a category filled with so many similar products, I know that it’s ripe for change. When consumers are frustrated or angry, you know that revolution is needed to break the shackles of mediocrity and dysfunction. When you have a new generation growing up as digital natives, their needs, expectations and rule book is completely different from their parents.
Did you ever see the video of the young child trying to pinch and swipe a magazine, not realizing it isn’t an iPad?
So with all due respect to Bill Maher, let me offer you three new rules to consider about marketing. As soon as you read them, it’s probably a good idea to ignore them since things will have changed by the time you get to the bottom of the list.
New Rule: No Copying.
You can’t just copy what you competitor makes and sell it in a similar package to the same audience at roughly the same price. It won’t fly. It won’t gain anyone’s attention. It will blend into oblivion quickly. Instead, understand how you can change the consumers experience in a way that matters to them. Sell it differently, package it differently, position it differently and focus on features that no one else pays any attention to during the selling process.
New Rule: How Does it feel?
Understand how your product (or service) delivers emotional value before you build a prototype. You might find that how everyone else has created a product in a category misses an important benefit. Long before you start building stuff, think about how you can create a 360 experience for a customer that focuses on that clear emotional connection. Whole Foods and Lululemon did this exceptionally well in the early years of their business. Uber targeted convenience and personal travel in a fresh way by breaking all the old rules of what you can and can’t do. Same for AirBnB. In fact, AirBnB brought in Disney’s Pixar team to help them storyboard how to understand their customer’s journey so they could deliver a better experience.
New Rule: Delight someone.
If you want customers to remark about your brand, you have to deliver something that is remarkable. You need something bold and excitingly fresh to counter the humdrum monotony of most products. We don’t need new flavors of canned soup. We do need an innovative way to deliver hot liquids. We don’t need more retail shops selling stuff. We need new and inventive ways to use stuff that perhaps we only need part time. Imagine part time clothes and along comes Rent The Runway.
Rules are meant to be broken
Great marketers love to break, ignore or change the rules of the game. If you are new to marketing, don’t try and learn and break rules. Understand problems that people have and see if you can find interesting ways to serve their needs providing you with revenue and customers with happiness.
Skip the rule book, create your own.
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Need help breaking the rules? Contact me.
Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/lumachrome/5486058591
Inspired by a talk by Brian Solis.
