Let’s face it, no one and I mean NO ONE, finds your business as fascinating as you do. Not your spouse, momma or best friend. And certainly not your clients and customers.
To them, when you talk about your business, do your marketing, business correspondence and conversations sound like you work at the offices of Banal, Insipid and Sapless?
In other words, boring?
As the great marketer, Dan Kennedy says “The #1 sin in marketing is being boring.”
Do You know what the ultimate hard-luck story is in marketing? “We’re in a low-interest category.”
This is our industry’s equivalent of “I got stuck in traffic” or “last night’s beer must have been off.” It’s a feeble and rickety cop-out that is used to explain away a lack of creativity in categories as diverse as financial services, carpet cleaning, household products, shampoo, mortgages and B2B.
No industry can really claim to be high-interest (except maybe the Kardashians): all marketers should remember that prospects have better things to do with their lives than ponder the minutiae of your good or service.
But even if you accept the argument that some categories are, umm… well… a little drier than others, this shouldn’t be a barrier to creativity.
And when you think about it, it’s actually easier to stand out against a dull background, so if you find yourself in that kind of category you should count your lucky stars, not curse your misfortune!
With that in mind, here are three ways to stifle consumers’ yawns in supposedly sleepy industries.
- What is one true benefit and feeling that your product or service evokes? We would all agree that tires are boring. But the safety of your new baby isn’t. That is why tire companies like Michelin use the feeling of safety when marketing their tires.
- Put your foot in your mouth! Well, not literally. But say the WRONG thing once in a while. The soap company, Persil, uses the phrase “Dirt is Good” in their marketing. In three words it turns a dull category into an interesting point of view. What’s the most heretical thing you could say in your industry?
- Fuzzy or New Math: Another way to shake things up is to find a killer stat that reframes the importance of the category. Ex. tonic water is the least exciting thing about an alcoholic drink. But British tonic brand Fever-Tree has turned this assumption on its head by arguing that “If three-quarters of your drink is the mixer, mix with the best.” How could you redo the math to persuade people that your product is more important than they think?
Boring is the #1 marketing sin. Do you need to confess?
I know, you are thinking, Vance, I am out of ideas. How can I be un-boring? Well, fear not my little munchkin (oops, wrong film reference), fear not my little Umpa Lumpa (dang did it again)….
Fear not my little dwarf (that’s better, a Disney reference) there is a way.
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