How to solve your marketing problems -- simply

I’ve been a copywriter, Creative Director, and marketing professional for quite some time.  I’m also a professor at a state university where I teach copywriting and marketing.

On occasion, a business owner will ask me why they aren’t getting the Return On Investment (ROI) that they expect after spending their money on marketing and advertising.

In response, the three questions I usually ask are basic to effective marketing and advertising. 

1.       “What problem is your product solving?”

2.      “Who are you solving it for?”

3.      “What makes your solution better than your competition’s?”

You might be surprised how often the intelligent, savvy, shrewd business owner will look at me, scratch their head, and say, “I’m not sure.”

There you go.  That is why their advertising and marketing aren’t working as well as it should.

So many businesses think if they just throw their marketing message out into the universe the customers will come running.  Sorry. This isn’t Field of Dreams and “If you build it they will come.”  A smart marketer knows better.

Marketing comes from the day of bringing goods to a central marketplace where customers would gather and purchase what they needed. Those days are over.

Let me give you an example. You go to a street fair. Besides the games and rides, there are a number of vendors selling food, souvenirs, etc.  You wander through the fair, and you start to get hungry.  So you decide on having something quick and easy to eat. 

From the marketing perspective, you, the consumer, have a Problem.  You are hungry, so you decide to take action to solve the problem. But what do you choose?  Hot dogs?  Hamburgers? Cotton candy? Waffles? Corn dogs? Those choices are the Solution, but as you can see, there are a variety of solutions.

Let’s say you’re the hot dog vendor.  Your dogs are all-beef and hearty. Are you going to try to sell to a vegan?  Of course not.  Or a light eater?  Nope.  Your Solution is meant for someone who wants a robust, filling, and cure-the-appetite, quick meal. 

Your Solution solves the hunger Problem for the market segment of hearty eaters.

But what if there is more than one hot dog vendor at the street fair?  How do you get those hearty eaters to come over to your hot dog stand?  That is where another marketing factor comes into play  -- the Positioning.  In other words, how do you want to position your hot dogs in the minds of the target market?  How do you want to differentiate your dogs from the competitors? Is your beef better?  Is the taste better?  Is your dog more filling?  Healthier? What exactly makes your dog preferable? 

Once you have decided how you want to position your product, that is what you will build your message around.  You want the target market to see it, hear it, read about it, remember it, and in the ideal world, be motivated by it.

Of course, before you begin, you have to be sure about something, and this is a step that many forget.  Does your target market care about the problem you are trying to solve?  If not, then all the positioning in the world isn’t going to be effective.

If you think it’s simply Positioning – Problem – Solution, I have to stop you there.  The real formula is an insight I gained from a cartoon in The New Yorker magazine. It was a three-panel cartoon. 

The first panel showed a street vendor with a cart and an umbrella above him that said, “Hot Chestnuts.”  But there were no customers at the chestnut stand.

The second panel depicted the same vendor at the same stand reading a book entitled “Principles of Marketing.”

In the third panel, the vendor was surrounded by customers. What was the difference?  The umbrella now said, “Very Hot Chestnuts.”

So what’s my simple equation?  You don’t want to be just Problem/Solution.  You want to know your product, know your target market, and know your positioning so you can invest your money in marketing messages that offer:

                                                                   Problem/Better Solution.

There you have it.