9:12
Saint Paul
I post on WordPress for my sites (RockPaperShootLLC.com and here on PersuasionReadingList.com) and use I MailChimp to email to my list.
And on the creator side, both of these services have completely changed their interface.
There’s no better way to frustrate your customers than to change something that works just fine.
Especially if that change causes more work for those customers, like creating new MailChimp templates.
That’s true in marketing, too.
Rosser Reeves wrote about the importance of a consistent and repeated message in his book Reality in Advertising.
What Makes You Unique?
Reeves writes about the importance of a Unique Selling Proposition, or USP. Your USP is the message that you want to disperse across the market place.
That message should be a concise solution to a problem. If that message can be put into words, all the better.
Reeves says not to think of the USP as what you’re putting into your marketing, but what the customer is taking away from that marketing.
The goal of your USP is to link your product’s solution with a customer’s pain points. And to continually reinforce that link with marketing.
It may sound simplistic, but your brand is defined by what you say you’re in business to do.
If you’re in business to fix tires, don’t spend marketing dollars to talk about ice cream.
Three Roads to Rome
Reeves identifies three ways to find your USP.
You can find a way that your product is unique, and hammer on that difference in your marketing.
You can design your product to be unique, perhaps by changing the formula or building a better product or offer.
Or you can highlight a way that your product is made that appears unique.
If you’re the first company to say your tobacco is toasted, no one else is going to use that angle… even if every manufacturer follows the same process.
The Dangers of Re-branding
If you have a successful brand, any sort of re-branding risks alienating the people spending their money with you.
And any market penetration that your message has — the connection customers make between their problems and your brand’s solutions — is suddenly severed in their minds.
Check out Coca-Cola, one of the world’s best known brands.
They don’t sell soda.
Coca-Cola sells happiness and satisfaction — a feeling.
And they have for decades.
“We don’t do that any more.”
I know of a company that rebranded some 4 times in the last 10 years.
They’d find a new market to chase, spend a lot of money on a new look, and hire a new marketing director.
It cost a small fortune, every time.
Meanwhile, previous clients would call to discuss a new project or ask for support.
And the rebranded company… no longer chasing the old market… would
Turn Away the Business!
Rosser Reeves warns against fickle changes in marketing strategy in Reality in Advertising.
Drawing on over 30 years in advertising, Reeves discusses how to find your USP, how to test it, and how to avoid diluting the message over years and years of use.
Marketers should pay attention.