I was feeling a bit stuck on what to talk about today and decided I'd look for an inspiring video to share here instead. I headed to TED which shares videos of the talks they host by incredible, talented, very smart people, and found this video by master marketing guru, Seth Godin.
It's called sliced bread and other marketing delights. It's 17min long if you have a chance to sit down this weekend and take a peek, I really suggest watching it. There's lots of great ideas and interesting insights involved with how to market your business successfully.
Below the video, I've posted some notes on his talk, in case you can't watch it yourself, along with my thoughts on how his advice can be applied to better our own little micro-businesses.
*feed readers, pop over to the blog here to see the video! :)
Notes on Seth's talk:
For the first 15 years that sliced bread was available, no one wanted it. Then Wonder came along and figured out how to market it, and how to spread the idea of it.
"The way that you're going to get what you want... is [to] figure out a way to get your ideas to spread. [...] We're living in a century of idea diffusion- people who can spread ideas, regardless of what those ideas are, win."
Consumers have too many choices and too little time. People tend to ignore things that they've seen before. Take cows for instance- we don't really notice cows on the side of the road because we've seen them so many times before, they're just part of the background. But if we saw a purple cow, we'd notice it. Until all cows started turning purple, then we'd start ignoring them again.
The thing that decides what gets purchased is "Is it remarkable?" Remarkable in the most literal sense, as in, "Is it worth making a remark about?"
The only thing that the top selling cars, dvds, store brands (Tiffany and Wal-mart) have in common is that they have nothing in common.
"No matter what we do for a living, we're in the fashion business. We have to figure out how to think that way."
Mass marketing ignores the fringe sector and goes for the center of people, the majority of consumers, and those are the same consumers who are overwhelmed with options and used to tuning everything out. Market towards the people on the "edges" because they care, they're the ones who are obsessed, they listen to what you have to say, they tell their friends.
"To make a product, to market an idea [...] you have to find a group that really cares about what you have to say and talk to them. Make it easy for them to tell their friends."
"Figure out who does care, who is going to raise their hand and say 'I want to hear what you're doing next' and sell something to them."
My conclusions:
I think in this micro-business sector of things, we're actually in a really good position to market ourselves effectively using these notions. We're already on the edges/fringes of the mainstream and have a built in audience of customers to talk to who affiliate with that community. It's important to go after those who already understand, who are already familiar with the indie business/craft/handmade movement, and even further, who are already fans of what you offer. That's the niche you serve. Talk to them, market to them. When you're selling to the right people, they'll tell their friends, they'll spread your idea for you.
And as this handmade community grows and grows and becomes more "mainstream", you'll have to work on defining yourself and standing out in the ever growing crowd even more. What is your "purple cow?" What are you doing differently with your business? What do you do/make/offer that no one else does that will make people stop and take notice?
Really think about what makes your business idea remarkable. What makes it worth writing about on blogs and getting mentioned by press/media? What makes people want to talk about it and tell their friends about it? If your idea is remarkable, people will want to buy a piece of it, a piece of you and what you have to offer.
Figure out who cares, and sell to them!
