I’ve written about how people don’t want good stuff. And sometimes it seems like there’s no way around it. We have something great to offer that’s great exactly because it’s new! It hasn’t been done before, so it’s not wanted. It’s not even understood.
When people are comparing our services to those of others, that’s a marketing challenge, but when they aren’t even looking for anything like what we’re offering, that’s something completely different. As the world of entertainment is changing, we can offer bad versions of old things, or we can harness the modern powers of everything and offer something amazing and new.
My favorite book is short but dense and intense. “Propaganda” by Edward Bernays is a tour of his genius marketing techniques from 1928. It’s scary what he did back then. Marketing has advanced even more today, but even then, there was no way you’d know you were a target of some of his techniques. The book made me realize I will never be too smart to be fooled by corporations or governments.
Besides being a cautionary tale, it’s also a peek into the deep empathy of a marketer.
Bernays was hired to sell a certain brand of pianos, and he had to figure out how. He saw there were many people who might like a piano but didn’t want them. Not just this brand, ALL brands.
The major reason: pianos are big and people didn’t have room for them. That’s a good reason to not buy a piano. It wasn’t practical and it wasn’t even a longing. It was a non-starter.
Bernays not only discovered the cause, he also figured out what would encourage people to buy them. And it was a million miles from a good magazine ad.
He enlisted a group of leading architects to introduce a new trend in home building: music rooms. He got it printed in design publications, and home builders convinced owners of the new trend.
| “The music room will be accepted because it has been made the thing. And the man or woman who has a music room, or has arranged a corner of the parlor as a musical corner, will naturally think of buying a piano. It will come to him as his own idea.” |
There is no going to far…
…if we’re determined to serve people something awesome. How do we…
- reach our audience,
- understand what they need,
- understand how they need it,
- understand why they don’t see it,
- understand what they do see,
- understand how they talk,
- understand what they trust,
- speak to them in a way that leads them to our great thing