If you’re here reading this you likely don’t have a multi-million dollar marketing budget, but if you did, your time wouldn’t be wasted on reviewing this fundamental marketing concept as every single dollar spent on marketing in any size business must have a meaningful impact.

Don’t sell what you sell, people won’t buy it

It has been said that “everything else aside, humans buy from humans”.

When marketing our business, product or service it is easy to become mechanical. Focusing on the mechanics of what we do or what we sell. “I want people to buy a product or a service from my business, not from me.” or “My product does this…” or “Our services solves this problem..”. This is partially true because to build for growth, you must NOT build a business around yourself. You must also clearly know and be able to demonstrate what problem your product solves. To be successful, you have to move past the technical. Why?

How humans are wired

Humans love to be connected. We are designed to love a sense of belonging (e.g. religion, communities, families, groups etc.) and we love feeling understood. These are emotions. Successful marketers don’t just speak tech talk, they speak emotions.

Some would argue that emotions are hard to quantify as they are so complex and often unique to each person. While this is true, in reality there are basic emotions which are common to most all people, no matter nationality, race, education, age etc.

Speak the language

One common emotion, for example, would be happiness. You could travel to a remote country and not know the local language, but a smile is a smile and would no doubt be well received. No words needed. The emotion is universal.

Marketing is no different. You cannot possibly know everything about all of your customers. However, it is safe to say if you’re customers are humans (which I sure hope they are!) they have these same basic emotions. Learn to speak this language to achieve a new level of effectiveness in your marketing.

Smiles are priceless

Look at your product or service without your ego. For a moment, step back from your business and put down your pride of “being the best” or “outdoing the competition”. Just set it down and look at it. What emotions could it create that would appeal to a person? Could it make them smile? laugh? cry? sing? dance?

Just like the bananas above, a product may solve a legitimate need, such as hunger, but getting your customer to engage with your solution (product or service) you need to look beyond the immediate need and look to the unspoken need. What need do the bananas above meet which are beyond the immediate need of hunger? How can a simple change suddenly make a person forget their immediate need and seek to connect with a higher need, such as the emotional needs we spoke of earlier? How could you implement this today, even if it is in just a small way?

Let’s have a conversation on this topic! Leave us all a comment below.

Cheers to success!