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Articles filed in: Marketing
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Real Job Of A Marketer
filed in Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Strategy
When a mother of two stands browsing the birthday cake supplies at the local Cook & Dine store she’s not imagining how well the piping bags will work. She’s imagining how she will feel when her little girl’s face lights up at the party on Sunday afternoon.
We think our job is to change how people feel about what we do.
Our job is to change how they feel about themselves.
Image by edenpictures.
Paying Attention To The Clues Your Customers Leave
“People tell us who they are, but we ignore it because we want
them to be who we want them to be.” — Donald Draper
Have you ever watched someone shopping? People touch things that catch their eye. They buy things that are not on their list because something changed how they feel in the moment. And as Paco Underhill discovered, they will even stop shopping if the aisles are too narrow and they are “brushed” by other customers.
Your customers are leaving clues about how they feel on Instagram and Twitter, on Facebook and in forums. I’ve seen a woman tell the story of a date night with her husband. An evening in the car watching the sun set by the ocean with a bar of their favourite indulgent chocolate, with single Instagram image. That’s solid gold to the chocolate maker.
We’re so busy trying to convince our customers that we forget to really see who they are and who they want to be. The good news is that it’s never too late to pay attention to the clues your customers leave.
Image by Ed Yourdon.
It’s Business. It’s Personal
When did business stop being personal and become an activity we engage in?
It wasn’t always this way. In 12000 BC when Obsidian was used for trades, business was about making fair exchanges of value based on trust. When pioneer farmers traded labour with their neighbours to make harvesting more efficient, business was about working for the collective good.
When did business become about a balance of power? About adding distance. Drawing lines. Setting boundaries. Vendors and consumers. Them and us. I don’t think we can use the introduction of currency as an excuse.
When did people stop being people and become, traffic, customers, users, members, followers or a target audience?
The people you want to do business with, the ones you want to reach out to and who you are hoping will respond are not just labels in your vocabulary or walking wallets to be transacted with. They deserve to be treated like it’s personal. It is to them it should be to you.
The businesses that make it personal are the ones that are winning now.
Image by Rob Stradling.
10 Ways To Make People Fall In Love With Your Brand Without Having Donald Draper On The Payroll
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
In the 60s there was no distinction between advertising and marketing. Everything has changed.
1. Create something that’s not for everyone.
If you’re speaking to everyone you’re getting through to no one.
Sanuk, shoes that are not shoes. Dollar Shave Club, shave tech for the enlightened.
2. Make a better product.
Create things that look good, taste great and work well.
Josh uses just two ingredients in his handmade stoneground chocolate. The Sydney Opera House brings in a billion dollars a year to the Australian economy.
3. Give people a story to tell.
Vanessa and Mat install beehives on the rooftops businesses in Melbourne. The restaurants then get to use or sell their very own honey.
4. Cherish and reward the customers you’ve got. Love begets loyalty.
Jamie Oliver created a free pizza giveaway on Instagram by writing the details on a plate and posting the photo. The side effect was a positive brand building vibe amongst the people who couldn’t take advantage of the offer that day. No billboard required.
5. Change how people feel.
charity:water built transparency and trust into their non-profit business model with the 100% model and GPS showing donors where their money was making a difference. Apple made black earbuds passe.
6. Create valuable content people want to share and come back for.
Boots ‘n All gives indie travellers great information. The Iconic online store didn’t just advertise in magazines they launched their own. You don’t need to have that kind of budget though blogs and manifestos work well too.
7. Be smarter and targeted with your advertising spend.
Sponsor a community event. Run a competition that benefits customers. Perform random acts of kindness. One of our local cafes which backs onto the beach sponsored a surfing competition last weekend.
8. Frame your scarcity.
Limited editions. Small group offerings. Something that makes you least like the competition.
If I’m wearing a pair of Christian Loboutin red soled shoes the world knows.
9. Deliver value beyond the functionality of your products and services.
Snakes and Lattes doesn’t just sell coffee and cake. This board game cafe helps customers to connect. Alessi teapots and Smeg fridges are style statements not just functional products.
10. Give your customers a better experience.
If you give people a reason to come back they will.
You don’t need a billboard to reach out to people.
Image by Robert Wade.
What People Want Then And Now
In the 70s and 80s you didn’t download music you owned it. If you cared enough about an artist or a song you had to wait for the vinyl to be pressed. Sometimes you waited in line hoping that EMI or Sony had sent enough copies to your local store. There you met other fans, just like you.
Along with a copy of the record you bought the artwork on the sleeve, a tangible reminder of the music you cared about. Buying a single or an album was an event, a layered experience. Taking the record from the sleeve, blowing the dust off. Being careful not to scratch the vinyl each time you played a song. Owning the music and the feeling meant having the album.
Today you don’t have to own the music to experience the feeling. And while there is trend away from ownership the experience and those feelings of connection and belonging will always be the currency of now.
What people want might change but how they want to feel stays the same. The feeling not the thing is what you need to focus on delivering.
Image by Rob Lambert.