It\u2019s crucial to inquire, \u201cWhat are we truly offering?\u201d Neglecting this question can limit your sales pitch or marketing messages to merely the tangible product or service.<\/p>\n
Frequently, individuals aren\u2019t seeking the product or service itself. Instead, they\u2019re drawn to the benefits or returns derived from it.<\/p>\n
By delving deeper than the product alone and understanding what people genuinely desire, you\u2019ll find the answer to \u201cWhat are we really selling?\u201d<\/p>\n
During the depths of the Great Depression, Revlon founder Charles Revson described cosmetics as \u201chope in a jar.\u201d His awareness that he was selling not a commodity but something less tangible helped him grow his business into an empire.<\/p>\n
That \u201csomething less tangible\u201d could be a longing for positive change (which hope is, at its core). Or it could be an emotion: joy, comfort, pride. Or it could be both. You could tap into an emotion while satisfying the prospective customer with a solution to a problem. Adopting this mindset will bolster your business, just as it did for Charles Revson.<\/p>\n
Most people are dissatisfied with at least some aspect of their life. It can be something as major as the state of their marriage or as minor as having to repeatedly get up from their desk to refill their water bottle. One marketing approach is to zero in on this aspect, view it as a problem, and offer a solution. \u201cIf you think about it, even the most basic widgets are solving a problem for somebody somewhere,\u201d says creative and content strategist Kelly Lack, whose clients have included Fenty Beauty and Williams-Sonoma. \u201cAnd if you can effectively position your widget, now it\u2019s a solution. Not just a widget.\u201d<\/p>\n
For some products and services, identifying the problem might seem easy. Jim Keenan (better known by the mononym Keenan), President\/CEO of consultancy A Sales Guy Inc., cites rice as an example: \u201cWhy does the person want the rice? Do they want the rice for a wedding, to make a curry, to feed the poor? Everything behind that why drives that decision.\u201d If you believe a common problem among your audience is that rice is too sticky, you\u2019d want to market fluffy, nonsticky rice. Then again, your audience might have a problem finding rice that is sticky enough, in which case you\u2019d want to market glutinous rice.<\/p>\n
You can\u2019t assume that because you prefer nonsticky rice, your audience does too. \u201cA lot of times marketers don\u2019t do sufficient research,\u201d says Bart Sichel, President of marketing and corporate strategy consultancy bps Captura. \u201cAll these marketers think they don\u2019t need to do research or focus groups. In 99.9 percent of cases, you do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sichel believes you should perform both qualitative and quantitative research to best determine the problems your audience wants your product to solve. \u201cQualitative surfaces the ideas,\u201d he explains. \u201cQuantitative helps tabulate the direction and the degree.\u201d<\/p>\n
Focus groups and one-on-one interviews fall under qualitative research. When leading this sort of research, it\u2019s particularly important that your biases and assumptions don\u2019t come through. Opt for open-ended questions: \u201cCan you describe your ideal widget?\u201d rather than \u201cDo you prefer large or small widgets?\u201d With the latter, there\u2019s the assumption that size is the most important factor in choosing a widget, that the group or interview participants have a distinct size preference, and that they all define large<\/em> and small<\/em> the same. The former question might reveal that respondents don\u2019t care about the size of their widgets nearly as much as they do about the shape, the color, how easily they can be cleaned, or a host of other factors you might never have considered. From there you can probe deeper with more open-ended questions such as \u201cCan you walk me through how you use your widget?\u201d This type of question \u201ccould lead to a need you might not have even thought of,\u201d Sichel says. \u201cThat\u2019s what leads to breakthroughs rather than modest change increments.\u201d<\/p>\n Once you\u2019ve gleaned enough insights into your target market\u2019s needs, you can proceed with the quantitative research. This might include questionnaires in which you ask a statistically relevant number of people whether the problems that came up in your qualitative research are indeed problems for them and, if so, how much of a problem and for what percentage and sector of the audience.<\/p>\n Keenan suggests using the results of your research to create what he calls a \u201cproblem identification chart\u201d with three columns. The first column lists the problems that your product or service aims to solve; the second is the impact for the potential customers if the problems aren\u2019t solved; the third is what is causing each problem. \u201cYou\u2019re not finding out what they need but instead where they are,\u201d he says. Lack agrees: \u201cWe\u2019re trying to meet the customer where they\u2019re at, which means letting the consumer mindset lead your every mood.\u201d<\/p>\n Of course, the qualitative and quantitative research combined will also help you better understand your target audience\u2014or more likely, audiences. You\u2019re apt to find that an ideal frozen dinner for parents of young children, say, looks rather different from the ideal frozen dinner for childless consumers, while empty nesters on a budget might have no desire for frozen dinners at all.<\/p>\n That\u2019s why, in addition to knowing an audience\u2019s pain points, you need to have at least some demographic and psychographic information about them. \u201cIf you understand your audience, the communities they\u2019re part of, the culture they identify with, the artists they look to, the food they enjoy, those insights are a solid jumping-off point for all the marketing you\u2019ll do to make your product or your brand relevant and desirable to them,\u201d Lack says. \u201cYou\u2019ll know what kind of UX or graphic design they\u2019re likely to respond to. You\u2019ll know where to advertise because you\u2019ll have an idea of where they\u2019re hanging out\u2014both digitally and in real life. You\u2019ll know what press to target because you know what they\u2019re reading. You\u2019ll know what influencers to develop partnerships with\u2014people with whom they likely feel familiarity or connection.\u201d<\/p>\n Once you understand the problems each sector of your audience is trying to solve with your product or service, you can move on to identifying and marketing the solutions. \u201cIt\u2019s not about pushing your product,\u201d Keenan insists. \u201cIt\u2019s about making a recommendation to solve a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n And how does one effectively make a recommendation? By telling a story.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the solution that\u2019s the answer,\u201d Sichel says, \u201cand because it\u2019s a solution, not a product, that\u2019s where the emotion in the storytelling comes in.\u201d And it\u2019s the storytelling that shows your target market why your offering, not that of your competitors, is the solution to their problem\u2014and why your audience should change their behavior by purchasing your product or service.<\/p>\n Maybe you don\u2019t want to position your brand or offering as a solution. Or perhaps the problem it\u2019s solving is too apparent or too mundane: a supermarket, for instance, is solving the problem of consumers\u2019 lack of food in the house. That\u2019s why supermarket chain Publix sells groceries by selling happiness. \u201cWhere shopping is a pleasure\u201d is the brand\u2019s slogan, which it reinforces by ensuring its stores are well lit, well stocked, and well staffed with genuinely friendly workers. Beyond that, its advertisements focus less on the food and more on the people enjoying being together at an occasion that is made even more joyful by the inclusion of food. The product is secondary to the emotion.<\/p>\n \u201cThe best way to get someone to change their behavior is through emotion,\u201d says Tim Ito, Cofounder\/Principal of digital marketing agency Marketing Nice Guys. The emotions he finds most effective to tap into, particularly for smaller businesses, are love, hate, fear\/anxiety, and ambition (\u201cwhat somebody wants to be\u201d). Similarly, a long-held tenet among copywriters is that the seven most effective emotional drivers are fear, greed, anger, guilt, flattery, exclusivity, and salvation.<\/p>\n In the case of the negative emotions, you\u2019re selling not them, but rather what Ito terms \u201cthe antidote.\u201d By addressing prospective customers\u2019 fear of driving children in an unsafe vehicle, for example, Volvo sells security. By speaking to the anger many women feel about the unreal beauty expectations set by media, Dove\u2019s Real Beauty campaign is selling empowerment, inclusivity, and self-esteem.<\/p>\n Keep in mind that this approach needs to be holistic; it\u2019s not a one-and-done problem-solution case study. Publix\u2019s heartwarming commercials and inviting slogan wouldn\u2019t be effective if its stores were shabby and its staff rude. \u201cBrand building for a long-term relationship with your customer should always be the goal,\u201d Lack says. \u201cAnd with every relationship\u2014even the one between your brand and your customer\u2014there has to be trust, consistency, and some emotional investment. So you need to keep showing up for your customer, as Lack cites e-tailer Zappos, where she was formerly Director of Content and Partnerships, as an example. \u201cZappos is all in on excellent customer service. They literally wrote the book on it. They call themselves a customer-service company that just happens to sell shoes and clothes.\u201d And by selling exceptional service first and apparel and footwear second, Zappos sets itself apart from the myriad other purveyors of shoes and clothing while retaining a loyal customer base.<\/p>\n Which brings us to what is arguably the most important aspect of selling your offering and brand as something more than what it appears to be. \u201cYou need to understand where you are,\u201d Ito says. \u201cIf it\u2019s not authentic, you\u2019re not going to be able to project it.\u201d<\/p>\n What they seem to sell: Readers<\/p>\n What they\u2019re really selling: Choices and affordability<\/p>\n How they sell it:<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cOwning one pair of readers was like owning one pair of shoes and having to wear them every day,\u201d said LOOK OPTIC founder Andrew Leary. So, he set out to provide consumers with the highest-quality readers available, in classic styles and colors for every occasion, priced so you can own multiple pairs. Check out our Brands We Love story on page 10 for more details.<\/p>\n What they seem to sell: Chocolate<\/p>\n What they\u2019re really selling: A well-deserved premium indulgence<\/p>\n How they sell it:<\/strong>\u00a0 When Godiva closed its stand-alone boutiques throughout North America to focus on selling its chocolate via the web and mass retailers, it still wanted to differentiate itself as a luxury choice. So it opted to appeal to its target audience\u2019s need for what chief marketing officer John Galloway called \u201ca little bright spot in their day\u201d with advertising that referenced \u201ccelebrations, every day or night.\u201d Godiva also reinforces the brand\u2019s exclusivity with copy emphasizing \u201cmagnificent artistry\u201d that describes not only the chocolate, but their beautiful gold packaging as well.<\/p>\n What they seem to sell: Craft supplies<\/p>\n What they\u2019re really selling: Creativity and self-expression<\/p>\n How they sell it:<\/strong>\u00a0 You can\u2019t buy crayons or any of Crayola\u2019s other products on its website\u2014its product pages instead direct you to the sites of various retailers. But what you can get on its site are lesson plans, coloring pages, and craft ideas, establishing the brand as a purveyor of inspiration and fun. Crayola backs this up with its annual Creativity Week program, during which it provides even more free resources for educators and parents worldwide, not only from Crayola but also from partners such as publishers HarperCollins and Penguin Random House. Expanding on this, in 2023 the brand launched Crayola Studios to produce films, series, and other entertainment for children. \u201cWith the establishment of Crayola Studios, we seek to inspire and nurture the next generation and help them develop lifelong creative mindsets,\u201d Executive Vice President of Marketing Victoria Lozano said during a presentation in Cannes. \u201cI believe Crayola\u2019s unique perspective and its long-standing mission and values present an exciting opportunity for the industry as it searches for and develops stand-out new entertainment content with creative self-expression at its heart.\u201d<\/p>\n This article originally appeared in FULL CIRCLE as syndicated content and is subject to copyright protections.<\/em> All rights reserved. Image(s) used under license from Shutterstock<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s crucial to inquire, \u201cWhat are we truly offering?\u201d Neglecting this question can limit your sales pitch or marketing messages to merely the tangible product or service. Frequently, individuals aren\u2019t…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":2273,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2272","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-full-circle-q2-2024"},"yoast_head":"\nSweet Emotion<\/h3>\n
\nmuch as they are for you.\u201d<\/p>\nWhat They\u2019re Really Selling: A Few Real-Life Examples<\/h2>\n
LOOK OPTIC<\/h3>\n
GODIVA<\/h3>\n
CRAYOLA<\/h3>\n