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Why People Buy And Why You Need To Know
We spend a great deal of our time and energy trying to convince people to choose us—often without giving enough consideration to why they might. It turns out that there are only three reasons people buy anything and every product or service falls somewhere on this buying hierarchy. 1. Utility If you
When Did Marketing Become About Telling?
In the village marketing was always about showing. Quality was demonstrated and trust was earned. As we outgrew the village and our small circles of trust and influence marketing became about telling. Loyalty was bought and exposure was paid for. But our digital connectedness is taking us back. Back
We Don’t Need Better Marketing
When I was growing up in Dublin home baking was the norm. Most families couldn’t afford the luxury of expensive, shop bought cakes, so ironically something like a mass-produced Mr Kipling’s French Fancy was seen as a decadent treat—the kind that was rolled out on a doily when you were having a speci
Thinking About Your Advantages
Every traditional car dealer sells a similar product. What can one Ford dealer do that his competitors in the next suburb can’t? There is very little he has a monopoly on. John is a car dealer who has been operating in Perth for 45 years, he periodically takes out a double page spread in the…
How Value Is Created
Value is created at the intersection of the customer’s worldview and your understanding of how your product meets that. If that’s hard to get your head around think about plugging a real world example into the model. Customer’s Worldview: Branded razors are expensive. The quality doesn’t reflect the
The Myth Of Differentiation
If we did a blind taste test on Starbucks coffee would the result tell us that Starbucks sells the best coffee in the world? Probably not, but the facts don’t stop Starbucks succeeding. In theory differentiation is the way we create a tangible advantage. A method for giving people something to measu
Why Strategy Must Come Before Tactics
What’s the best time to send a tweet? How do you develop a content strategy? What’s the easiest way to drive traffic to your website? How do you build a great landing page? If you can ‘Google’ the question and get an answer does that give you an unfair advantage over your competitors? Do you…
Motivating People To Buy
Imagine you have taken your children on a day trip to the seaside. It’s the perfect day, the sun is shining, the waves are lapping the shore and you’re having a day that you’ll never forget. There is a new gelato shop across the street selling home made ices at $5 a scoop. Clearly as…
Where A Sale Begins
The sale of the first GoPro camera didn’t begin when the customer walked through the retailer’s door. It didn’t even begin with the huddle of engineers in the tiny innovation department at the factory. The first sale began in the lineup, as the surfers waited to catch a wave. A marketer’s story typi
How Deep Does Your Story Go?
It seems like a step in the right direction when the giant multinational supermarket starts selling organic vegetables. But the story begins to unravel when the organic broccoli comes shirk-wrapped in cling film, on a polystyrene tray. The customer who the story is aimed at, feels the disconnect bet
The New Story Of Value
Jen is a passionate entrepreneur who has been working on her project for over three years. This project is Jen’s baby—she lives and breathes it. You know the feeling. Jen was finally at the stage of trademarking her company internationally, and because she wanted to do things right she engaged a law
10 Brand Storytelling Lessons In 2 Minutes
Take two minutes to watch this advert from IKEA. Those two minutes are guaranteed to change how you think about marketing your business. This video is more than just advertising designed to sell something—it’s a home run in brand storytelling. Ten things IKEA did to make their story great 1. Underst
The Battle For Your Customer’s Mind
You have no doubt seen the adverts for the Microsoft Surface Pro3….the tablet that’s a laptop. Microsoft goes ‘head to head’ with Apple again in this campaign and that’s the problem. Once you start asking the competition’s customers to rationalise choosing your product over theirs, you’ve misunderst
Clever Marketing
Do you remember those TV ads that succeeded in interrupting or engaging us for sixty seconds? That’s what we used to call clever marketing. Today, clever marketing is no longer about creating the best advertising campaign, it’s about understanding your customer’s worldview and how they want to feel—
The Story Behind Your Metrics
Lines out the door. An email list that is growing at breakneck speed. Dozens of five star reviews on Yelp. More users, subscribers or members all adding to the value of your platform. These are the stuff entrepreneurial dreams are made of. Measuring growth and how it happens feels important. But ‘mo
What’s Your Customer’s Narrative?
Why do thousands of people line up outside department stores waiting for the doors to open on Boxing Day? The stock is the same as it was two days before, after all— what’s changed is the story the buyer gets to tell himself. You are in the story selling business, as much as you are…
6 Brand Storytelling Lessons From Santa Claus
I will never forget the day that the illusion of Santa was destroyed for my children. We were at a local tourist attraction in the UK during school holidays, a visit to Santa was included in the ticket. We joined the queue just after 1pm to discover that Santa had gone to lunch and would…
Who Will This Matter To?
Conventional innovation and marketing wisdom reminds us not to come up with good ideas for products or services to sell, but to solve problems instead. People need to eat, but don’t have time to cook, so open a cafe or design a new food processor with an extra chopping function. The result is six ‘m
Wanted And Welcomed
We still have a landline phone at home to make it easy and more economical for elderly relatives overseas to get in touch. It rings at lunchtime and at around 6pm every day. We don’t pick up, because we know these particular calls are not ones we want or welcome. I often wonder what the…
Sorry: Easy To Say, Not So Easy To Do
The assistant serving at the counter apologised for the long wait, then for not having received the order and finally for having no change. The cycle continued with every customer she served. There was a sorry for the wrong order given and one for the fact that the croissants hadn’t arrived that mor
