Have you ever bought a product or service, when you didn’t really know what you were buying? When the marketing messaging was vague and mysterious?
I’d bet the answer to that was probably yes. When you’ve been in that situation when you have been the person that has brought that product based upon that vague statement or message, how did you end up feeling about the product?
Was the product good or bad? Was it useful or useless?
The thing is when the product is bad there’s nothing that can be done about it. The product is just crap.
When the quality of your product isn’t in question it’s time to question your marketing messaging
When the product is good it comes as a surprise. This is something you might think is a good thing, you might think it’s a pleasant surprise. But, in reality, people don’t like to be surprised. They like to know what they’re getting into, they like to know what they buying, they like to know who they’re buying from, and they like to know what that product is going to do for them.
Have you ever seen mystery boxes? You know, where you pay your money and you don’t know what’s in the box; you just get a random box of stuff.
In amongst the rough, there are diamonds to be found
There are a few around and most of them are utter junk. The end-user has no expectation, other than to be surprised. People don’t use the products that come in those things, not very often. The only ones that do really well are ones that people have previously bought and they’ve been pleasantly surprised by. And more often than not, they are clothing based ones (T-shirts and the likes).
They’ve got lots of people online talking about how wonderful it was. So people then buy them expecting something wonderful. There’s some sort of expectation in place, an expectation that’s rarely met, but an expectation all the same.
Expectations matter in your marketing messaging, as well as your delivery
When you bring a new one to market, it can be really difficult to get people to buy it. You have to tell people what’s in it without telling people what’s in it, which is a contradiction in terms. That is not the easiest thing to do, not by a long shot.
People don’t like to be surprised. They just don’t. More often than not they’re certainly not going to pay money for a surprise. So that is a surprise box, the surprise is the product. They’re not selling what’s in the box. They’re selling the feeling, the anticipation, the excitement, the unknown.
Basically, they’re giving people the opportunity to buy themselves a gift. A gift they could open without knowing what is inside. But, as I previously mentioned, most of those things don’t do very well.
A T-Shirt shaped diamond in the messy rough
The ones that do quite well are very specific in how they market it. So there’s a couple that I know of that do really well. One of them is T-shirts and every month you get sent a bunch of different T-shirts. They do quite well. People like to collect T-shirts when they’re silly ones.
People like to collect T-shirts but, they specify in their marketing what kind of products you’re getting. You’re getting a t-shirt with a character on it and it will be silly. They don’t tell you exactly what t-shirt it is, but there is some measure of expectation in place. You will get a couple of T-shirts. They will have a character on, and they will be fun and silly. Without telling you what it is they’re still being really quite specific in their marketing.
Who doesn’t like a good snack?
There’s another one I know that does quite well and they provide you with sweets and snacks from around the world. Every month they pick a different country and you get a box full of snacks from that country.
Again, that’s really quite specific, sweets and snacks from around the world. You’re not going to open it up and find anything other than junk food in there. So it’s really quite specific. It gives people the opportunity to try something new that they wouldn’t otherwise have got. They try something new but, it’s within the realms of their expectation. It is a snack or a sweet of some kind. Expectations have been set.
Your product or your service isn’t a mystery box, it isn’t a surprise.
You need to be really specific. What is the product, what problem does it solve, and what pain points does it resolve by solving that problem? How does it solve that problem? What does the customer have to do to implement your solution in order to eradicate that problem? How does the customer feel whilst they experienced that problem? And, how do they feel when the problem is solved?
You have to be specific.
People don’t really care about what your product is, they just care about what the result will be.
So that’s what you need to be specific with, the result. What will implementing your solution do for that person? How will it benefit their life, how will it improve their life, and how will they be able to go forwards, feeling better?
When you are specific in your marketing messaging, your marking, and so on, about all of those things I guarantee that your product will sell better than any vaguely described product or service. Or, anything that sounds generic.
People love specificity (even if it is hard to pronounce)
People love to be specific, people love their expectations to be met, and people absolutely hate surprise, they absolutely hate disappointment. So be specific. It’s not that hard.
What does it do? How does it do it? How does the person feel before implementing your solution? And, how do they feel after implementing a solution? Is it easy for them to implement your solution? Do they require any extra help to implement your solution? What benefit does it offer them in their life?
Before you get too deep into what you want the focus of your marketing messaging to be, you need to really understand the product
A common issue for businesses when they are trying to nail down their marketing messaging is not quite understood the true value of their product. As the creator or seller of the product, we are often a little too close to it to really be able to see it. We need to step back and try to gain the perspective of the people it is intended for. The customer.
That can seem like a tricky proposition like you have to start doing questionnaires or interrogating our current customers, but that isn’t always required. It would help, sure. But, it is not essential to start. If you are unsure about how to go about it then there is another piece I wrote recently that will help. In that article, I talked in depth about seeing the product from the other side, the customer’s side. You can find that article here https://mybizacademy.co.uk/all-products-are-designed-to-solve-a-problem
It’s is not always possible to go it alone
Sometimes you need more data. Getting a beta testing group together will help you to test the product and provide you with real and valuable feedback that will not only help you to nail down your marketing messaging, it will also help you to improve the product. A win-win all around.
Setting up a beta-testing group could be as simple as putting a post on your social media asking people to try it for free. If that doesn’t work then you can send me a message (https://mikethebizguy.co.uk/Contact) and I will send you a few suggestions and hints that will help you to find people to use for beta-testers. People are out there and they are willing to help. If you struggle to ask then I can help you iron out the kinks in your marketing messaging that will ensure that you get a beta-testing round off the ground.