Unlock the Magic in Your Story Now
Get the Free 20 questions to Ask Before Launching Your Idea workbook when you sign up for occasional updates.
Get the Free 20 questions to Ask Before Launching Your Idea workbook when you sign up for occasional updates.
Is It Time To Stop Advertising?
Last week I passed a moving kid at the side of the road, where cars sped by at 80km per hour. He was wearing a red sandwich board that screamed, “BUY ONE GET ONE FREE,” and had clearly been given instructions to dance about to attract more attention. I was 200 metres past him when I realised he was advertising the unremarkable pizza place on the other side of the road. The dancing sandwich board guy made me question the value of advertising once again.
Advertising by definition was never designed to deliver either value or joy.
advertise (verb)
1. to announce or praise (a product, service, etc.) in some public medium of communication in order to induce people to buy or use it: to advertise a new brand of toothpaste.
2. to give information to the public about; announce publicly in a newspaper, on radio or television, etc.: to advertise a reward.
3. to call attention to.
Perhaps that’s why we’ve grown to resent it and how it interrupts us so much, not because we are more intolerant than past generations but because we have a choice to pay attention or not. How does it make you feel when a popup appears on a website’s landing page as soon as you arrive? Or when you answer the cold caller as you are stir-frying vegetables at 6pm?
Probably not how you want your customers to feel.
Fourteen years after Seth Godin wrote Permission Marketing it’s still okay to interrupt people without any context, for one reason only.
Because we can.
That was never a good enough reason to make people care. Today if we want to survive in a world with unlimited choices we’ve got no option but to work harder to make the right people care more.
I once had a client who came to me having spent $6,000 on an advert in a glossy magazine. She knew the magazine’s circulation numbers, but she didn’t know who she’d reached. The phone didn’t ring once afterwards. I think she chose to advertise because it felt safe. Because if you’re in business that’s what you do to get customers and survive. Maybe that’s why the worst kind of advertising still exists, because businesses are scared that the phone won’t ring today?
I’m sure the dancing billboard sold a few more pizzas that evening, but we didn’t miss not seeing him on the side of the road the next day. And we only care about his pizzas (or those of the three other takeaways within a 5km radius) when they are 2-for-1.
Image by bcline.
Share this article
What Kills Big Companies?
filed in Storytelling, Strategy
For over a century Kodak knew that what was important to its customers was “Kodak moments” not their innovation and patents, (well their marketers did anyway). And yet they failed to translate that knowing into staying relevant to their customers.
“Sales + Customers = Nothing Broken is the formula for corporate cyanide.
Most big companies that die kill themselves drinking it.”
—Kevin Ashton
Most little companies too.
They falter not because they don’t do what they do well, but because they don’t understand why that matters to their customers. And by knowing that one thing they discover what might matter more, or how they could do things better.
So here’s the question only you can answer.
Our customers come to us because……
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
And on and on.
It’s your job to keep giving them a reason to come back.
Image by Geir Halvorsen.
Share this article
Why Your Brand Doesn’t Need A Unique Selling Proposition
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
In the 90s Pampers’ ‘unique selling proposition’ (USP) claimed it was driest nappy on the market. Procter & Gamble prided itself on this benefit, investing heavily in research and development to maintain its USP. In the end that singular focus blinkered the company’s understanding about what mothers really wanted. And while they believed that Pampers was the driest nappy, that wasn’t enough to stop mums buying more of the newer Huggies brand which appealed to their hearts not just their heads.
The marketing concept ‘unique selling proposition’ was introduced in the 1940’s by the pioneer of television advertising Rosser Reeves. Reeves invented the term USP to explain how successful advertising, (not necessarily great products and services) could convince the masses to switch brands. The golden rule was that adverts must include a USP that said “Buy this product, and you will get this specific benefit.” More than seventy years later we’re trying to make something that applied to an analog world fit into our digital landscape.
Marketing departments try to pass off cheaper, faster, stronger and longer lasting as unique benefits of a product or service. But in a world where most things are good enough it’s getting harder and harder to turn being different into an advantage. Unique by definition means one-of-a-kind, unlike anything else. That was an easy claim to make half a century ago when there were three kinds of washing powder— not so easy today.
People don’t want to be sold on the reasons why you think your brand is better or best.
They don’t want different.
They want difference.
Starbucks, Google, Instagram, Amazon, Innocent Juices, Oprah, Spanx and on and on, didn’t succeed just because they were different and could tell us how.
What makes a brand unique is the difference it makes in people’s lives.
So organize for difference not different it’s much harder to replicate.
Image by Alan Foster.
Share this article
Narrow And Deep Vs. The Market Of Everyone
When you were ten years old all any marketer needed to know about you, or the people in your street was that you owned a TV. In a world of limited choices big companies could afford to cast the net wide across the masses. No depth required. This tactic doesn’t work so well now that the masses have the power to choose, they have formed collectives and niches of all kinds. The market of everyone just disappeared overnight and that’s scary for big companies. But not for you, because your business can go ‘narrow and deep’.
The term ‘narrow and deep’ was originally applied to a retailing strategy where stores sold a few types of items across a wide variety of brands. A technological shift has enabled us to broaden that construct and to apply it to a marketing strategy that means less can be more. In other words, you don’t need the biggest market share, the largest product line or the most customers to win.
Size and ubiquity isn’t what’s important for brands any longer.
Significance trumps recognition now.
Hiut Denim doesn’t sell the most jeans. Good & Proper Tea serves leaf evangelists on the road and Silvano Lattanzi is doing just fine selling custom shoes that start at $7,000 a pair to the few. Even Apple doesn’t matter to everyone, the company’s smartphone market share has fluctuated between 13% and 22% in the past two years.
The power to ignore the masses and to touch one person at a time is not the short end of the stick. ‘Narrow and deep’ might not be as scary as you think.
Image by MTSOfan.
Share this article
Why I’m Doing This. Questioning What’s Important
filed in Entrepreneurship
It’s rumoured that Tumblr founder David Karp will get $250 million from the deal his company signed with Yahoo earlier this week. Do you think that’s what really matters to him?
Was this the prize he had his eye on six years ago when he started? Could money have been the answer that was top of his “Why I’m doing this” list back then? Would his answers be the same today?
I’d like to think that what mattered to David when he had everything, (but the money) is how his work changed what one person was able to do the next day. If it did then he still has that today and the money doesn’t even matter.
Now it’s your turn. Write the question. Underline it. Think hard. Write your list.
WHY AM I DOING THIS?
Are the answers the same as the ones you would write if your ship came in?
Image by Katie Johnson.
Share this article
The Secret Of Disruptive Innovations
filed in Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Strategy
When the online eyewear retailer Warby Parker began selling boutique-quality glasses at a $95 price point they weren’t just trying to undercut the bigger players in the industry. Of course they did that and more, growing the company by 500% in just a year and mostly by word of mouth.
The average customer who needs glasses buys a pair every 2.1 years. Warby Parker set out to make glasses something that customers would buy in multiples as a fashion statements, much like women buy shoes and bags. They wanted customers to view them as accessories they could change to match occasions or moods. And while price combined with quality enables the company to tell a different story than other retailers, what changes everything is the story the customer now tells himself about how many pairs of glasses he can own and how often he should buy new ones. Many of Warby Parker’s customers buy six or seven pairs of glasses at a time and not just when their prescription expires.
Airbnb made people long to experience a destination like a local without the $8 price tag for nuts from the mini-bar. Apple changed how we feel about buying a whole album including the songs we didn’t care about. Amazon’s Kindle made us think of airport bookstores as reference libraries where we browse but don’t buy.
The secret of disruptive innovations and business models isn’t that they disrupt ‘the industry’, it’s that they disrupt people. They change how people feel about something enough to change how they behave. It’s entirely possible to look into the future and think about how your customer might be changed tomorrow as a result of what you do today. While ‘the industry’ works on the assumption that the larvae of today will just be bigger caterpillars tomorrow, the disruptor imagines butterflies.
Image by Len Matthews.
Share this article
What Does Disney Do?
filed in Storytelling, Strategy
Only one thing.
They set out to make people happy.
The Mickey Mouse balloon sales are a pleasant side effect of that.
A souvenir of that time when the visitor felt the way she wanted to feel.
In business we often set out to sell the cause, forgetting that what’s really valuable is the effect.
Nobody needs one more balloon, but people will never tire of experiencing a little more joy.
What are you setting out to do? Go ahead, write it down…I’ll wait for you.
Image by Jonathan.
Share this article
5 Ways To Tell A Better Brand Story Today
filed in Marketing, Storytelling
It turns out telling your brand story is more about doing than telling. Here are five things you can do today to begin telling a better brand story.
1. Review and rewrite your about page.
A great about page isn’t all about you. It should communicate how you can help or delight the reader. That’s what they are really there to find out.
2. Start telling people why you do what you do, not just what you do.
People buy products but they become loyal to brands that they can care about.
3. Make a list of reasons why you are least like the competition and share that story.
Great brands are often differentiated by what they don’t do, meaning they have room to do what they do well.
4. Give your customers and clients the opportunity to tell some of the story for you.
Ask for testimonials and feedback which they are happy for you to publish on your website. Link to and repost comments, reviews and images from social media channels. Don’t forget to thank people for loving what you do.
5. Do what you say you’re going to do.
Return emails. Meet deadlines. Keep your promises. Nobody does that anymore. I’m always amazed by how blown away people are by just this one thing.
Don’t be defined by the story you didn’t tell.
Image by Yelp.
Share this article
What’s Your Plan For The Other 364 Days?
It’s interesting to watch businesses of all stripes trying to attach a layer of Mother’s Day meaning to their brands. I’m not sure how you surprise your Mum with running shoes from the “40% off women’s sports shoe sale”. Finding a way to jump on the bandwagon of the day doesn’t take a lot of imagination. Colour signs pink, add some flowers and hey presto you’re done. For today anyway.
Thinking like everyone else is thinking and doing what everyone else is doing isn’t difficult. It’s not a smart long-term business strategy either. What’s your plan for the other 364 days of the year?
Are you going to be the business that matters, the one that people choose with intention and not out of necessity or holiday desperation?
Yes, there’s always another holiday season or celebration around the corner. But I think you’ll find it’s far more valuable to put your back into building something that changes how people feel every day of the year.
Image by Joe Shlabotnik.
Share this article
If You Don’t Like The Story Tell A Different One
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
The manager at Muffin Break is frustrated. Yet again she’s discovered a customer from the jam-packed sushi bar opposite sitting at one of her tables eating lunch. Of course she wastes no time asking the sushi-eater to leave.
I wonder what would happen if instead of angrily telling people to move on, she offered to get them a coffee instead. Same situation different story.
We really do have the power to change the conversation.
Image by David Gallagher.