We Just Need To Increase Our Awareness!

I often hear this veiled cry of desperation from rural marketing departments or uneducated sales people. My challenge is always: awareness of what?

The question is designed to get you to think for yourself.

To get you to be specific, not generic in your marketing message.

Generalities get ignored in the information blizzard, hyper-connected world we live in.

Specifics stand out, whereas saying the same thing doesn’t.

If you’re raising awareness about something that’s already a given in your category (such as quality, range, price or innovation….yaaaawn…) then you have only helped your competitors rather than capturing a unique position for your brand in your market’s mind.

You’ve also murdered a massive amount of marketing money in the process.

So what could you stand for?

• What would make you uniquely different in the market’s mind?
• What could you offer that no one else does?
• What could you offer that was new rather than better?
• What could you do that was the complete opposite of your competitors?
• What could you offer that solved your farmer’s biggest frustration?

In their brilliant book The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, Jack Trout and Al Ries use the example of EveryReady batteries.

The Energiser bunny we all know has tried for many years to claim the market position of “long lasting” when Duracell already owned it.

Even their name implies longevity. This is why Duracell continue to be market leader because EveryReady followed them, rather than lead themselves to a different territory.

Burger King tried to follow McDonalds with “fast food” and failed epicly too.

The only time Pepsi got close to Coke (within 10% of sales) was when they stood for something specific that Coke didn’t: The New Generation.

They hired stars like Lionel Ritchie and Michael Jackson (showing my age right!) and this closed the gap significantly. But then they reverted back and focussed on everyone as their market, they lost what they’d worked so hard to gain.

You can’t stand for something if you chase after everything.

Marketing is a game of mental warfare as Trout tells us.

You have to burn a unique position that you can own in your market’s mind.

That’s what great brands do consistently and religiously.

My advice to you would be to offer something specific that sticks.

Just please don’t say quality or innovation because nobody ever wants to own “unquality” or “non-innovative.”

Specificity beats generalities.

You can do better than this.

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I am on a mission to help rural business owners, sales managers and reps get the respect and results they deserve.

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