One of the many ideas I gave to a new client on yesterday’s Marketing Mentor Session was so well received, he suggested I share it with you. He’s a long-time reader, so I took his advice.
The following is a shortened version if the idea, edited to make it of wider relevance then his specific situation.
It starts like this
Every business provides a product or a service.
That product or service solves a problem for the customer.
It creates a change. The customer changes from (something) to (something).
For example.
- From board to entertained.
- From confused to clear.
- From worried to confident.
- From struggling to succeeding.
- From discomfort to comfort.
- From vulnerable to safe.
- From lonely to connected.
- From loss to gain.
- From ignorant to informed.
- From broke to wealthy.
- From stressed to relaxed.
- From lost to guided.
You need to figure out the change your prospective customers are looking for. Their ‘from what’ and their ‘to what’.
Warning: The biggest danger here is believing the answer is obvious.
It usually isn’t!
Seriously.
For instance, the best coffee shops don’t take you from thirsty to quenched.
They change you by creating an attractive atmosphere. An atmosphere, where you can go from stressed to relaxed, or from tired to restored, or from lonely to connected, from stuck to creative or from bored to entertained.
The world’s top coffee shops know this. It’s what their marketing focuses on. It’s why we see very little emphasis placed on the coffee beans used, yet huge emphasis placed on the welcoming, positive atmosphere. The improvement this makes is impossible to overstate.
The world’s most expensive restaurants understand this. They don’t focus on taking you from hungry to full. You can go down the street and get the same number of calories from a burger joint for pennies. Instead, these restaurants focus on their exclusivity. They take you (and your guest) from feeling normal to feeling like a star.
How this relates to your product or service
Determine what change or changes your prospective customer is truly looking for. On the client session, we worked this out together. All I can do here, is ask you to use the coffee shop / restaurant examples as a guide.
Next.
- Focus on the ‘from what’ part. Your marketing message needs to meet them right there. It needs to talk to their current situation. It needs to address the discomfort they’re feeling. This means your message will be on the very same wavelength that they’re on. This dramatically and profoundly increases the sales impact of your marketing.
- Then focus on the ‘to what’ part. Your marketing needs to illustrate how your product or service transitions them to their end point. To the very thing they desire.
I’m not sure how useful that will be, without the conversations and answers around it from yesterday’s client session. However, I believe there’s enough there to at least get you thinking more effectively about the focus of your marketing.
