Don't Get Before Before You Get Started

Jan 18th, 2010
by Dale Kobelsky.

A wise man once said, “Sometimes it’s not about being better, it’s about sucking less.” In the world of marketing, often it is not the smartest one who wins - it’s the one who screws up the least. Here are five mistakes to avoid so you don’t get beat before you start.

1) Don’t assume your customers buy your brand in the same way you sell it. In fact, it is safe to assume they don’t. To bridge the gap, start by studying your customers’ buying habits. Look at what they buy, why they buy and when they buy. Then study your brand with your customers in mind and look for the best place to intersect on their terms, not yours. This will uncover new insights that will allow you to alter tactics to suit the customer buying process.

2) Don’t try to appeal to everyone, appeal directly to someone. Your new HR software won’t appeal to all CEOs, your new minimum tillage corn planter won’t appeal to all farmers and your new Barbie won’t appeal to all young girls. A strategy that appeals to every prospect is impossible to build. Take the time to fully understand your market. This might require profiling and segmenting techniques but it will identify who your best targets are within your larger audience. It will also give you the background to determine what drives their purchase decisions.

3) Anchor your brand position to one thing, not everything. Customers only need one good reason to buy something, not 10 little reasons. Find out what that reason is and anchor your brand to it.

4) Don’t focus on what your brand does, focus on what your brand means. Think of your brand touch point as the first impression of someone you meet at a party. If you like what you sense, perhaps you will invest the time to get to know this person better. If you don’t like what you sense, you will probably smile politely and move on. Make sure your brand touch points leave prospects with a reason to move past that first impression. You only have a short time to appeal to your target audience to get to know your brand. Make sure they know what your brand could mean for them. If they are interested, then tell them what it does.

5) Don’t go head-to-head with your competition. If your brand is 99% the same as the competitor’s brand, do yourself a favor and focus on the 1% that’s different. Focusing on this 1% will save your sales force painful discussions about why your brand is better at doing the same thing as your competitor’s. It will also keep you from promoting your competition by bringing them front and center in head-to-head comparisons.