Everyone needs marketing.
Whether it’s a small or big company.
Whether it’s for an individual or for an organization.
Marketing is the most important skill to master in today’s world because, in the increasingly noisy world, the ability to influence people to take action is scarce.
The truth is that people don’t know how good your products or services are until they buy them. Before they buy, people only know how good your marketing is. Which means the best marketer always wins.
People often share this misconception that marketing means spammy, almost like blast advertisement.
It interrupts our life and makes us make bad decisions.
Are marketers always liars? What is marketing?
Is it some sort of magic?
I will share with you what I have learnt for the past 5 years in marketing from real experience.
What is marketing? Why does it matter?
Based on Seth Godin, “Marketing is the generous act of helping someone solve a problem. Their problem. Marketing helps others become who they seek to become”.
Seth explains the difference between bad and good marketing. Bad marketing is when a company tries to get you to buy something by using scare tactics or interrupting you. Good marketing is when a company advertises their product in a way that does not disturb you or make you feel pressure to buy something.
Good marketing is a positive force in the world. “The other kind of marketing, the effective kind, is about understanding our customer’s world view and desires so we can connect with them.
Marketing is a force of change. A marketer is only effective if he creates change, which means they push the audience to take action that is beneficial for them.
I learnt this idea from Digital Marketers, they have a quote like this: “The average marketers only articulate what a customer will HAVE if they purchase their product or service. Great marketers speak to how a customer will FEEL, how their AVERAGE DAY will change and how their STATUS will elevate.”
This changed everything.
It changed how I write my copywriting, how I draft my offer and how I present my idea to my ideal customers.
We sell feelings, status, transformation and connection- not tasks or stuff.
Because humans are emotional.
They don’t buy what they need, most of the time they buy what they want.
Because the things you sell does not matter, what makes a huge difference is in the story you tell.
It’s your job to tell a story to make a change.
Make it clear so that people understand what are the benefits they can get.
Let them understand they can get the transform they always wanted after using your product and service.
Create a vivid imagination in your audience’s mind of how life is going to start to change after they have taken the leap to choose your offer.
Human love stories.
That is why we love movies, we love ancient stories.
When there is an interesting story, our minds pause and pay attention, we are curious to know the ending of the story.
And stories connect people.
The best way to sell is to tell a story that your audience feel connected to it.
Through the story, sell a dream, a magical transformation, and a memorable experience, never sell normal commodities.
Harvard marketing professor Theodore Levitt famously said “people don;t want to buy a quarter-inch drill bit, they want a quarter-inch hole”
The lesson is that the drill bit is merely a feature, a means to an end, but what people truly want is the benefit, the hole it makes.
No one wants a hole.
What people want is the shelf that goes on the wall after they drill the hole.
Actually, what they want is how they’ll feel once they see how uncluttered everything is when they put their stuff on the shelf.
Let me make it clear:
If you’re selling seafood, positioning it as a memorable meal and a great experience with family.
If you’re selling a camera, positioning it as a magic tool that will change the content creator’s life, make it super easy for them to produce more content, and get the life they want.
If you’re selling a weight loss program, positioning it as a challenge plan, an easy quick fix plan that will forever change their life, and they have no need to go through the suffering weight loss diet and exercise.
Positioning your product or service differently will make your product stand out from the crowded market.
Effective marketing now relies on empathy and service, not selfish mass spam, remember this as this will be the fundamental of High Converting Chatbot that we will discuss in the later chapter.
Now, you have understood that your ability to make an impact rely on your marketing.
Your next question will be how to run effective marketing? And let the world know what I can offer, why my product is great.
Let’s dive in:-
The Purple Cow – Be The Boss & Create Your Own Arena
If you want to immediately stand out from your customer view, you will need to know this idea – that will instantly make your voice and your brand crystal clear for your target audience.
The market is challenging.
If our customers don’t know what we stand for.
If our customers can’t instantly differentiate us from our competitors.
You are going to lose a lot of money to advertising and yet no one understands why they should pay attention to your product.
Especially in a crowded marketplace, fitting in is failing. In a busy marketplace, not standing out is the same as being invisible.
As a consumer, we’re too busy to pay attention to advertising but are desperate for solutions that help us survive.
Same for your customers, they are looking for your solution.
But is your offer obvious for them to instantly spot your value without spending extra brainpower?
When you confuse your prospect, it’s the time they leave.
The answer is to solve this challenge by becoming a purple cow.
When every other business looks like a normal brown cow, they can’t ignore when there is a striking sharp purple cow in town.
Be different. Create a new market.
Based on The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, it’s better to be first than it is better.
People don’t want to have another better vacuum cleaner or another TV.
They want a magic cleaner that looks totally different from the normal vacuum cleaner. A great brand example is Dyson.
They reinvented the new vacuum cleaner and changed the way people clean their houses.
The new-look totally hooked the audience.
It’s much easier to get into the mind first than to try to convince someone you have a better product than the one that did get there first.
In today’s market, a me-too product with a line extension name will not become very profitable.
The leading brand in any category is most often the first to come to people’s minds.
If you don’t have the time or resources to compete with giants in a well-established category, find your own niche.
Everyone is interested in what’s new.
Very few people are interested in what’s better.
A better offer is often for advanced and highly skilled people. And the market is very small for it.
Promoting your product or service when you’re the first in a new category gives you an advantage because of lack of competition.
Being the king in the small fish pond is often better to be a small invincible commoner in the big fish pond.
Find your arena and focus to be the best.
Make sure your audience knows it.
Like what we did at The Crunch, instead of focusing on general digital marketing service, we focus on creating High Converting Chatbot for our client.
5 simple steps to market your business
Every business leverage these 5 steps to win the market
Before you dive into Facebook ads, chatbot and video content marketing.
Make sure you have the right long-term strategy for your business.
The strategy here is the big-picture planning you do prior to the tactics. What you want your company to achieve, what you wish people remember your brand as.
In the next 5 years, what do you wish your company would achieve?
A strategy without tactics leads to paralysis by analysis.
Tactics without strategy lead to the “bright shiny object syndrome.”
What is the 1 big thing that you wish to achieve, and everything you do is surrounded by this 1 big goal that aligns everyone in your team to move toward this direction?
Based on the book This is Marketing by Seth Godin, he provides a roadmap for marketing in five steps.
It’s almost like a blueprint for the success of any business, just like this one. I paraphrased what these five steps are:
PRODUCT – Seth’s advice for effective marketing is to come up with a product that solves customers’ problems in ways they haven’t solved before. Understand your customer and provide them with a unique solution that they have been looking for.
FOCUS – Be discriminating when you are small. Dominate in a niche category. Don’t try to please everybody as such a broad appeal usually isn’t effective.
It doesn’t seem sensible to spend all of your resources trying to satisfy everyone when only a few people will actually benefit.
Narrow your spectrum and target the customers that you know will like and use what you offer.
STORY – Align the story of your product with what people want and how they feel. Connect with them with a story they can understand and resonate with. A good story that can spark emotion.
SPREAD – Be unique. Understand the story of what you are selling to a customer base. Use these tools to promote yourself in the digital world so that your message can get out there, and those who follow you will spread it for you if they resonate with what you do.
And never forget to promote your idea through social media, or ads platforms.
SHOW UP – Have confidence in your story. Seek to inspire others with your work. Write a blog, create YouTube content or create an Instagram business profile to share your works.
Capture your lead and nurture the relationship with relevant content. Relentlessly pursue goals and share along the process.
Work hard, show up and don’t stop until you reach a dominant status, because marketing takes time as well as continued effort. The real money is in the follow-up.
That is all you need for what is marketing.
Remember, it’s all about implementation and execution.
Let me reiterate, knowing and not doing is the same as not knowing.
Knowledge without action is useless.
Action will bring you progress and experience.
It’s best to take action and experience marketing for yourself rather than keep reading about it on the internet or in books…
Take massive actions to change your life by mastering marketing!
