Rethinking Marketing: It's Not the Channel, It's Your Message
Understanding the real problem in marketing - it's the message, not the medium
It’s not your marketing channels. Your message is broken...
Many years ago, a British shoe manufacturer sent two salespeople to Africa to investigate and report back on market potential.
The first salesman reported, "There is NO potential here - nobody wears shoes."
The second salesman reported, "There is MASSIVE potential here - nobody wears shoes."
Most marketing approaches the market like the first salesperson - it begins where demand already exists and seeks to catch a portion of it…
That's why 82% of web-based advertising is ignored, and 21 cents of every media dollar is wasted.
However, the greatest companies successfully market the problem they solve and thus create demand for their product or service.
“If I had an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions.” — Albert Einstein.
Today, most companies are feeling pressure to show performance. We need marketing to cough up some results…
So, we find an adjacent market that we can sort of compete in, and we race right to this market and begin bludgeoning the people we find there mercilessly with different facts or incremental statements about our product and how great it is.
· “We’re 5x faster than so and so.”
· “Our thing is best in class.”
· “The competition gets you five readings per hour. We do 60!”
· “PLEASE PICK US!”
But shouting louder than others is not the key to standing out…
It’s not about blaming Google or ad platforms…
Instead, it’s about stepping up and offering a compelling narrative and worldview that resonates with your audience.
It’s time to stop pointing fingers at distribution channels and start evaluating the message you’re sharing through them…
Make something different. Make people care. Make fans, not followers.