Oct
29
Home Business Marketing: What are you really selling?
I’ll cut straight to the chase here. While there are a lot of things you need to know about marketing, there is one question you need to answer before you do anything else. It is, without doubt, the most important aspect of both your marketing plan and your business plan. Drumroll please…
Are You Selling Love or Money? Those are your choices. Your only choices.
Selling Love
The Premise: You are selling something that gives your customer emotional value. It could be sex, it could be safety, it could be the envy of their neighbors. Whatever. It all boils down to love. The vast majority of business-to-consumer items fall into this category.
Soap? Love. You’re selling the feeling of cleanliness, sexiness, smelling good, soft skin, whatever.
Mushroom soup? Love. You’re selling the feeling that your customer is nourishing her family. (You should probably be selling the feeling that she’s nourishing her family better than her neighbor is, but that’s a whole ‘nother article.)
Shiny new car? Love. You’re selling the feeling of power, wealth, prowess, virility, safety.
You heard it here first, people. When is a car not a car? When it’s love. Duh.
Selling Money
The Premise: You are selling something that helps your customer make or save money. If, at the end of the day, your customer will save money or get new business because they bought your product, you are not selling that product. You are selling them cash. The vast majority of business-to-business items fall into this category.
Cheap paper? You’re selling them the cash they’ll save because they didn’t buy the expensive stuff.
Expensive stationery? You’re selling them the new customers they’ll get because they’ve improved their image.
Graphic design? Ditto on the stationery. They don’t look like some bargain-basement Mickey Mouse jackass, so they get more customers, and then they retire in Greece.
Selling Both
Don’t. I know you think your product will make people feel better AND save them money. I know you think you’re the next Donald Trump. Both of these things may be true, but you’re never going to sell anything with that mindset. In your marketing efforts, you want to present one strong message. One. Pick a side.
B2C Example: You sell water softener pellets to homeowners. They have two primary benefits. One, they soften water, making it more drinkable and reducing hard-water related skin conditions. Two, they extend the life of your customer’s water treatment system, saving them money in the long run. Pick one angle. Personally, I’d pick the first.
B2B example: You sell biodegradable packaging products and your target market is small-to-medium sized businesses. You can sell to their love of the environment, or you can sell the idea that using your products will get them more customers. Don’t sell both, or you’ll water down your message. (FYI, I’d sell the latter.)
Tomorrow, and for the rest of the week, we’re going to talk about what to do with this fabulous new insight. You should subscribe. I was going to offer you a money-back guarantee, but you didn’t pay anything. I tell you what. If you hate it, maybe I’ll send you ten bucks.
Now thats an interesting concept.
So, as a pimp, how would one apply that to his business? Does selling love generate more revenue? After all, the high priced options that make me feel nifty and ‘loved’ (often called ‘escorts’) usually cost less the corner discount job (often called ‘ah hell you know what we mean’).
Not that I’d know.
Shane,
Obviously, you’d want to conduct preliminary market research. What’s the competition like in both the high-end and low-end categories? What are the demographics of your potential customers? What’s your supply of high-end ladies in relation to their demand?
Personally, I’d go high end. Your workers are less likely to call the fuzz. (I was going to say “call the fuzz on your ass” but I realized that wasn’t quite the image I was going for. I guess I’ve said it now.)
Thank you for adding to the conversation. :)
Shane wins for top 3 funniest comments yet on this blog.
Susan, you’re supposed to be sucking up to ME. MY comments are the funniest. Now Shane and I are going to have to have a fight and it’s all your fault.
When is a car not a car?
When it turns into a driveway.
Wacka-wacka!
Hahahahaha!
And the competition for funniest commentor continues. Now THAT is a plug-in I would use.
N – thats not a bad idea – socialize your comments!
wow, i’ve known this for awhile, but could never properly explain it to people, now i’ll just send those people this link. thanks.
btw, love the blog! it is easily my favorite. i love the no bullshit, no sweet talking approach.
Hi Michael! Thanks for coming – I’m glad you like the blog. Please, send your friends! :)
Too bad I can’t hate your blog no matter how hard I try – and thus won’t get that “easy” 10 bucks :)
Great post, and awesome comment thread, everyone!
Hey Jarkko – do you know how much it would cost me to ship ten bucks to Finland? Neither do I. Thank God it’s not an issue. The comment thread is totally Shane’s fault. I blame him entirely.
“bargain-basement Mickey Mouse jackass”
That is the funniest little morsel I have read all week! Thanks for making me literally laugh out loud!
Enjoying the blog so far, keep it up :-)
Hi Andrew. I’m glad you liked it. It’s nice to have you around. Where do I know your site from? Was it the Freelance Switch comment from post-Blog Action Day?
Yes’m, that twas me :-) btw, my website right now sucks, so don’t pay aaaaaany attention to it! haha
I started Freelancing not long ago, and haven’t had a lot of time to work on my own site :-( But its ok, I’m going to roll out a new one soon.
Hi Andrew… Did you say “twas”? That’s awesome. Let us know when you relaunch. We could have a cyber ribbon cutting.
Buttons… Buttons… Who’s got the buttons… You might want to think about “fear of loss” as well.
Who has the buttons, indeed. Hi, Boris, thanks for stopping by IttyBiz. It’s great to have you.
Fear of loss is a tremendous motivator. Humans are a pretty clingy bunch. There’s something to the whole Buddhist, “don’t get attached” thing.
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article nnial 2007 – salvatore iaconesi – del.icio.us poetry, but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.
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