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Articles filed in: Marketing
It’s Here—The Book That Will Reinvent Your Marketing
It’s incredible to think about the changes that have happened to our lives and businesses in the last decade. Now instead of guessing what our customers are thinking we can actually listen to what they want. We can see what they are doing all of the time, in real time. And yet, we’re still using a marketing model that was designed to sell things to our grandparents. It’s not working.
That’s why I wrote my new book Difference to give you a one-page method to reimagine your business and rethink your marketing.
You can buy it now on Amazon Kindle or in paperback.
I want you to be able to tap into what your customers really want from you—something you already have, but that you’re not yet communicating.
What’s inside?
Difference is 100 pages of insights and strategies to take you from where you are to where you want to be. This book has zero padding, it gives you what you need in a bite-size volume. My aim is to give you the tools to get to work as soon as possible.
I have deconstructed how some of the most successful, emerging businesses have gained both market and heart share, and created a tool that will allow you to do the same.
You can download the Difference Map for free and use it to plan world domination.
The book also gives my take on how these businesses have succeeded by creating difference. You’ll learn the distinction between simply being different and creating difference and the case studies of businesses that have done this will be useful reference tools. You can read more about the book and share the resources from it at the difference.is website.
This book needs you too
I thought Difference should practice what it preached. There is no big publishing engine behind this book, no PR department and zero marketing budget. No press release, no blog tour or guest posts—just you and me and my intention for how this book can help you.
When you’ve read the book I’d be grateful for honest two line reviews on Amazon.com. They help people to find the book and to know if it’s for them or not. They help the book too!
The job of every entrepreneur, innovator and marketer going forward is not to ask customers to notice us. Our job is to really see them.
I tried hard to see you as I wrote this book. I hoped I’ve managed to do that.
*UPDATE: Thanks for helping to make Difference a #1 Amazon Bestseller in three categories, alongside legendary books like The Lean Startup within just 12 hours of this post going live.
Was Everything Okay?
The table was clean. The waitress arrived to take coffee orders within a couple of minutes. We tried to ignore the peeling corners of the laminated menu.
The food and the coffee were fine. The waitress polite in a ‘going through the motions’ kind of way. Her parting question as we paid the bill…..
“Was everything okay?”
Yes actually, everything was okay. We had no complaints, nothing to report and that, I guess is the problem for most businesses and it’s also the opportunity for you. Every day we have experiences that are nothing to write home about, micro make-or-break moments. Feelings that exist, but that we can’t explain. Changing how we feel in those moments is so important that Apple has a secret packaging room where designers test which box designs evoke an emotional response.
My friend Stuart who is an entrepreneur and gifted app developer once told me that what differentiates a great app from a good one is the feeling that a level of love has been put into it. Living in a digital age has conditioned us to expect. The goal posts for exceptional have shifted and it’s almost impossible to make a product or service fly now without that level of love.
We simply know it when we feel it. We don’t want everything to be okay anymore.
We want to feel the love.
Which brands change how you feel in the moment and why?
Image by Mark.
It’s Harder To Matter On Purpose
It’s easy to think about what it would be like to build your business around the quick win. To be the author of the book discovered by a random stranger at the airport, or the designer who gets picked by the awards committee.
It’s much harder to matter on purpose, to be intentional about the people you want to serve and to work out how you’re going to create difference for them.
That’s the reason more businesses don’t take the time to do it, and it’s also the reason for the success of the ones that do. There’s nothing to stop you being one of them.
Image by Sebastiaan ter Burg.
Significance Could Be Your Competitive Advantage
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
You’re late for an appointment and in your rush to get out the door you forget to put everything into your bag.
QUESTION
Which would you rather FORGET to bring with you, your wallet or your phone?
2006 ANSWER
PHONE.
2014 ANSWER
WALLET.
A competitive advantage isn’t always as tangible as the patents you file, or processes you put in place.
So don’t just set out to create a better product. Set out to change the meaning people will one day attach to it.
Image by Garnet.
Success Is How Your Customers Feel
You’ve just had a great launch. You made your monthly sales targets. Your stock sold out in one day. There are a hundred and one reasons to celebrate, and one thing to remember.
Success is not just a data point that you hit on the sales chart, or a dollar figure that makes your accountant happy.
Success is how your customers feel.
How are you measuring that?
Image by Ed Yourdon.
Redefining What It Means To ‘Go Viral’
Your idea is not a virus and here’s why. A virus doesn’t care who it infects. Everyone is a target.
A virus’s only reason to be a virus is to survive. You actually care about the people who use your products, read your book, or sign up for your service. You are not in the business of survival, you want to create difference for the people you serve.
How to ‘go viral’ with intention
1. Create something that people want.
2. Know who you want to infect.
3. Have a great reason for wanting to infect them.
4. Matter to one person first. Speak to that person.
5. Change how people feel, before you try to change what they do.
6. Notice what your customers care about most. Do more of that.
7. Work hard to give people something to talk about. Kittens don’t count.
8. Consciously bake word of mouth into your product or service. Most people skip this step.
9. Make giving people a reason to talk about your products and services part of your culture, not just your marketing.
10.Do it on purpose. Then do it over and over again.
The businesses that succeed wildly are not just founded on ideas that are shared in a split second, they are grounded in what will matter to their customers for a hundred years.
Image by Jm2c.
Blonde Or Brunette?
Still or sparkling? Red or white? Stuffed crust or deep pan?
These questions might give people a reason to choose in the moment, but they are not the foundation of a lasting relationship.
You don’t win in the long run by simply being one of the alternatives.
You win by being ‘the one’. What will it take for your business to be that?
Image by Nicole Nicole.
The Number One Way To Create Value In Any Marketplace
In an era when we can push a button on our phones to summon a driver, why is shopping for a television still a nightmare? I doubt that there is a single person in the history of the universe who has enjoyed shopping for a TV.
That row upon row of yellow stickered, feature described sameness. Then just when you’re semi-sure that the one third from the end has the best picture quality, the salesperson arrives with some facts that confuse you.
It turns out that when we design our stores and our businesses to confuse people, we probably do. Unintentionally making people feel helpless is the world’s worst marketing strategy.
When was the last time you stood in your customer’s shoes?
Have you taken a tour of your own website recently? Tried to open your packaging?
Called your customer support at the weekend? Or walked through your store on a busy Friday?
If you’re ever in doubt about how to create value, simply work out how to make your customers feel good.
Then do that.
Image by Jerry Lewis.
Two Golden Rules For Choosing Clients
I have a couple of simple rules that I live by when making the decision about which clients to work with.
First—if I’m not jumping out of my skin to work with someone and excited by the difference (big or small) their business creates then we’re probably not a good fit.
You have to care that your client succeeds as much as they do.
Second, is what I’ve come to call, ‘the please convince me test’. If a potential client emails and says “I’m just not sure”, or repeatedly asks to be convinced that you can deliver what they think they need, then the working relationship is probably doomed before it begins.
If a client doesn’t believe you can help them, you probably can’t.
It’s far kinder to yourself (and to your clients in the long run), to put your energy into projects where your work will have the most impact.
How do you decide?
Image by Stephen D.
How Apple Succeeded, While Others Failed
When Apple designed their first store, they made sure that over half of it was dedicated to what they called, ‘solutions’. The store wasn’t stacked ceiling to floor with inventory, instead it was a wall-to-wall space of discovery.
While most retailers were showing people what they had in stock, Apple was showing people what their products could help them become. The Apple strategy was built around Steve Jobs’ understanding that, “people don’t just want to buy personal computers anymore, they want to know what they can do with them.”
That single insight sums up the key to Apple’s success. What Jobs recognised, was that sales, growth and market share are a side effect of understanding what people really want.
He didn’t give people reasons to choose. He gave them reasons to crave, covet and to belong.
How could you do that for your customers?
Image by Camillo Miller.