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Aggressive Small Business Marketing & Advertising
Big thoughts, ideas and how-tos for aggressive, fast-growth businesses and the entrepreneurs who fuel them.
Is “find a need and fill it” bad marketing advice?
Posted by Michael Cage on Friday, May 18, 2007Just because marketing advice is repeated often ... doesn't make it true.
"Find a need and fill it ... that is the key to successfully marketing a business." - Someone who needs to be slapped around a little bit.
Truth is, follow this "find a need and fill it" advice and you are inviting commodity pricing.
Think about it...
People NEED to get their roof repaired ... but they WANT on-time, courteous service, clean workers and a guarantee their roof won't leak again.
People NEED a computer network set up ... but they WANT someone who understands their business, will suggest things to make it run smoother before a breakdown prompts it, and won't make them feel stupid by talking geek to them.
People NEED to have a cavity filled ... but they WANT to look good and have a pain-free experience in a friendly office with warm people.
People price shop for what they need, and even that makes them grumpy.
People pay premium prices for what they want, and they love it.
Go to an Apple Store. Play marketing anthropologist. Really observe the people. You'll "get it" in less than an hour.
Service business, retail business, business-to-business, whatever your business...
...if your business struggles with commodity pricing or if you have to "justify" your price more than once in a blue moon ... betcha an iPhone (ahem, another example) you are focusing on what your customers or clients need, and aren't paying attention to what they want. And that makes them begin to not want you.
Forget find a need and fill it.
Find a want, touch your market ... and lead a movement.
I talked about this in today's Aggressive Marketing & Entrepreneurship Daily Podcast (along with a discussion about when to release version 1 of your product or service, true entrepreneurial competencies, and how to stay passionate and energized in your business). If you haven't listened yet ... what are you waiting for? ... I'm on Episode #4. (Subscribe in iTunes.)
There are 19 comments, add your own!The first Aggressive Marketing & Entrepreneurship podcast
Posted by Michael Cage on Monday, May 14, 2007Quick follow-up: The 2nd episode of "Aggressive Marketing & Entrepreneurship Daily" has been posted. AND ... you can now subscribe to the podcast using iTunes or RSS Feed. If you just want to check it out with my handy web-based player, just click this link.
Fact is ... I'm a slow writer. And while I love blogging here, and will continue to do so, going forward I'll be putting plenty of attention on podcasting my comments, marketing strategies and general "good stuff" for entrepreneurs.
The first podcast is up ... and I'm talking about everything from what really makes an entrepreneur an entrepreneur to the meaning of "aggressive marketing" --- which just might surprise you.
Anyway, here is the link - The Very First Aggressive Small Business Marketing & Entrepreneurship Podcast. You can listen to it directly on the web page or download the mp3. I have the King of All Nerds (said with love) putting together the feed and iTunes buttons; so they will be up soon.
Feedback counts on this. How much I do and what I answer going forward is going to depend on the response I get. Go, listen ... and leave a comment (or a link in).
There are 9 comments, add your own!The differentiation trade-off and marketing to values
Posted by Michael Cage on Tuesday, May 08, 2007One of the most common requests I get from clients is, "how can I differentiate my business/product/service/offer?"
The trade-off is clear. You can escape commodity-pricing and increase the flow of new and repeat business by being clearly and compellingly different. But part of being different is being willing to turn away, sometimes even offend, those who do not match the new vibe your business puts off.
The more different you purport to be, the more important congruence becomes. This means the promises you make in your marketing, the experience people have when they arrive in your office, the staff they interact with ... literally every touchpoint between your customers or clients and your business must match.
For a simple example, consider the jarring experience of making an appointment with a realtor who held herself out to be an expert in luxury homes and the luxury market ... and she then picks you up in a Yugo. That is lack of congruence. (Note, it may not be "fair" ... but it is how it is.)
With a good knowledge of the market, the answers about "how" to differentiate come easily. It's the willingness to say "no" to the clients who don't fit the new differentiation that is tough (for the client).
Anyway, here a great example of clearly a differentiated marketing message from a Berkely, California dentist.
From his site:
Imagine a Berkeley dentist's office that embodies the kind of innovative thinking synonymous with Berkeley. Imagine a dental environment reminiscent of a yoga studio or your best friend's living room -- a wellness spa designed for your comfort. Imagine experiencing eco-dentistry™, the pioneering approach that values the planet and your well-being. Imagine receiving a healing foot massage and listening to meditative music while your teeth are lovingly cleaned. Imagine seeing your smile miraculously transformed with leading edge techniques, natural-looking materials, and artist-quality restorations. This is not a dream: we are transcendentist® and Dr. Fred Pockrass.
Check out the Transcendentist, Dr. Fred Pockrass. Nice job.
P.S. There is a second, and probably more important lesson here. If you read the above description, you'll notice that he is clearly marketing to values. Not to features and benefits (traditional marketing and copywriting). Do it right, and marketing to values is an order of magnitude more powerful than the old stuff. Interested? Let me know in the comments and I'll write about it in a future post.
There are 5 comments, add your own!Still cold calling for lead generation?
Posted by Michael Cage on Sunday, April 15, 2007When I write about touchy subjects, I get angry E-mails.
In July of 2004, I wrote that businesses and salespeople that rely on cold calling are like functional drunks. They don't grow fully because of it ... in the back of their mind they know it is bad for them ... yet they manage to survive without too many negative consequences. At least for a little while.
I'm glad old posts never get removed, because I got a "best ever angry E-mail" this afternoon from a guy who will remain anonymous for obvious reasons.
He writes...
"As a recovering alcoholic who lived for years as a functional drunk, I'm mad as hell that you'd lump me in with anyone stupid enough to cold call!"
Talk about making my day! 
In all fairness, stupid is way overdoing it. Cold calling takes guts. I know. I cut my teeth as a teen selling fire alarms door-to-door during sweltering Baltimore summers. And people who are taking action and are doing anything to engage their market and grow their businesses have my respect. Far too many sit on the sidelines ... hoping, wishing, and dreaming.
Anyway...
The truth is that most entrepreneurs, salespeople and business owners who drive sales through cold calling simply don't know what they don't know. They see what the competition is doing and copy it. Or they do what they "have always done." Or they have tried another method of lead generation, couldn't get it to work and gave up. Whatever the cause, they simply don't know how to get the many systematic ways there are to generate leads working so that salespeople spend their time selling ... not begging someone to let them get in the door in order to have a chance to sell.
When you know how to engineer effective marketing systems, you flip the roles --- motivated, qualified prospects chase you instead of you chasing them.
These are all topics --- lead generation and business-to-business / b2b marketing (or, my preference, b2e or business-to-entrepreneur marketing) --- that I'll be writing about later this month. If you have any specific questions or comments, now would be a good time to get them in. Oh, and Mr. X, I'd like to thank you for the motivation. 
P.S. I know I haven't posted much lately. Mucho changes happening here, including a launch of a new podcast. Details to follow. Stay close.
There are 12 comments, add your own!Experiences and story, the foundation of luxury marketing offers
Posted by Michael Cage on Wednesday, February 14, 2007Exceptional experiences that pack a story to tell are the new luxury marketing offers. (And there is a lesson here for all businesses, marketing to the affluent or not, so read on.)
People with disposable, six-figure incomes are spending money on luxury goods that used to be reserved for the "upper crust" of society. These are the mass affluent, and they have been written about in exhausting detail.
Ages ago, in order to come away with that uber-trendy LV bag, you had to go to a boutique where you were treated like a king or queen before receiving your prize. At full retail price. Nowadays, it is as likely to have been purchased at CostCo or a discounter on the web.
This democratization of luxury goods has destroyed a major selling point: Exclusivity.
Cynical or not, most luxury goods are sold at a premium in large part due to the social message they communicate. When "everyone" has access to what used to make your social group "unique" ... the symbols begin to lose their meaning.
BTW, in case you have your nose up at the "snobs" who would drop $2k on a handbag to show off ... keep in mind that everything from tribal tattoos, hybrid vehicles, fair trade coffee and Apple Computers are sold the same way.
Identifying your "tribe" through your "stuff" isn't a rich person's disease ... it's a condition of social humans. You and I included. Deal with it.
So ... with luxury goods becoming less exclusive and more available with every passing day, their value as symbols decreases. When that happens, the people who used to value the symbols seek out the next big thing.
Today, that "thing" takes the form of experiences.
The value of an experience is not limited to the experience itself. It includes the story you get to tell about the experience from that point forward.
Two weeks ago, I flew home from a speaking gig in Dallas.
I'm not a "suit guy" ... but the man sitting next to me had a stunning suit on and I told him I loved it. What followed was a 30 minute discussion about how he had flown three times to London, spent the better part of a day each time with a Saville Row tailor, and almost 9 months later this suit was the result. Good story.
He almost certainly paid upwards of $10,000 for the entire experience.
Could he have have received a similar quality suit from a Washington D.C. tailor (or a Saville Row tailor who travelled to DC)? Certainly. For less money? Absolutely. But would it have been nearly as good a story to tell? Not even close.
Let's turn this to geek culture.
Everyone in the blogging world is aware of Hugh's project with Thomas Mahon, English Cut. Is there anyone out there who does not believe that an English Cut suit does not carry a premium in Silicon Valley ... not only because of the quality ... but because of the story it allows the wearer to tell? Ozwald Boateng may be hot stuff in LA, but my money is on English Cut being the one people in the cutting edge world of tech "get."
In case you are wondering, I'm not writing all of this to talk about going bespoke.
I don't care what you sell. When you engineer your offerings to include an exceptional experience and a great story to tell about it ... you have a point of differentiation and the seed of incredible word-of-mouth marketing it'll take ages for the competition to catch up to.
There are 10 comments, add your own!