The internet has become the great equalizer for every entrepreneur. Now if a person has a great business idea, there is nothing preventing the promotion. We can create and sell e-books, eps (electric albums), items, crafts, anything online. As a matter of fact, there are about
137,000 new businesses created each day. Sadly it is also estimated that the exact same number of businesses close each day. So with all this activity, how do we stand out so that our business becomes viable?
Is it branding? Is it content? Is it SEO? As an entrepreneur I have had to weigh and measure all the above and determine where I would spend my energy. The reality is there is no single magic bullet. The truth of the situation is that I need to begin with the end in mind: how do I get my customers to become loyal to my brand and offering?
Well if I want my customer to be loyal to my offering, I should first know who my customer is. Where do they work? What do they value? How often would they use my service or product? Why would they need my service or product? How do I provide them value, save them time, or help them achieve their goal? The answer to these questions gives me a clear picture of my client avatar. And from that picture I can make my important marketing decisions.
Like where does customers go for information when they are on their customer journey? Knowing this tells me where I need to provide my content. What information do they look for when making decisions on their customer journey? Knowing this tells me what types of content to provide. Types because my customers are not a monolith. All do not make decisions based on the same data presentation. Some need graphs, others bullet points, and others still look for checklists or associations. One size does not fit all.
And last but not least (at least for this chronicle entry) is how do we stand apart from all the noise? I like the example of Liquid Death because they sell water. The concept of selling water alone is amusing, because most of us have faucets with a near endless supply of it and yet we go to the store to buy prepackaged bottles for proportionally more than we spend on a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline. But I digress.. Liquid Death broke into this crowded space and carved out a niche, not by using fancy plastic bottle shapes like their predecessors. But instead by packaging their product in similar packaging to the alcohol vendors. To allow their customers to "fit in" in the alcohol consuming environments.
This my friends was in no way shape or form ordinary. I would dare say this was brilliant! And the fact that a water company born in 2019, that has now become a billion dollar beverage brand, is proof. As they say the proof of the pudding is in the eating (or in this case the reading). Look at Liquid Death, What did they do? How did they do it? What from them can you learn and then apply to your operation?
For me the lesson was in not being ordinary. If you dress like all the other penguins, how will anyone identify your unique penguin-ness? So if I were a purple penguin, complete with revolutionary war over coat, boots, ruffled shirt, standing with other penguins, I bet you would remember me then. Be memorable. Carpe Diem!
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