The first step of effective marketing is as easy to say as it is difficult to do: make something worth buying. But wait \u2013 isn\u2019t that the task of designers and manufacturers?<\/p>\n
Yes, but it\u2019s also a task for marketers. To see why, let\u2019s drill down into what makes something worth buying in the first place. Consider a literal drill, with a quarter-inch bit.<\/p>\n
As the Harvard marketing professor Theodore Levitt famously pointed out, nobody wants a quarter-inch drill bit for its own sake; they want it for the quarter-inch hole it makes.<\/p>\n
But no one wants a hole for its own sake, either. It\u2019s just a means of accomplishing something else \u2013 perhaps installing a shelf on your living room wall. And that shelf is just a way of storing things, which, in turn, is just a way to make your home look tidy.<\/p>\n
And why do you want tidiness? Well, maybe it makes you feel that you have control of your environment. Maybe it makes you feel admired by your visitors. Maybe a bit of both.<\/p>\n
In other words, you don\u2019t really want a drill bit. You want safety and respect \u2013 two of the most fundamental human needs. The drill bit is just a tool for fulfilling them.<\/p>\n
Effective marketing begins by identifying people\u2019s underlying needs and desires. These almost always boil down to deep-seated, emotionally-resonant aspirations, such as adventure, belonging, connection, freedom, strength and tranquility.<\/p>\n
A product is worth buying if it provides a compelling answer to one or more of these aspirations. To see this in action, imagine a man buying an SUV. Why does he buy it?<\/p>\n
Perhaps he\u2019s attracted to its off-roading capabilities. But here\u2019s the thing; he may never actually go off-roading, and yet the mere promise of being able to do so can be enough to motivate his purchase. Why? Because it speaks to his thirst for adventure.<\/p>\n
Here, the task of marketing is to persuade the man that the SUV can quench his thirst \u2013 and the most compelling way to do that is to build an SUV that can actually go off-road and conveys this fact by having a rugged appearance.<\/p>\n
Effective marketing therefore begins at the design and manufacturing stage. After identifying people\u2019s aspirations, it guides the process of building products that speak to them with compelling, deliverable promises of fulfillment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Identify an underlying human desire or need and make sure your product fulfills it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":87755,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/procure-media.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/procure-media.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/procure-media.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/procure-media.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/procure-media.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=87631"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/procure-media.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87631\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87670,"href":"https:\/\/procure-media.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87631\/revisions\/87670"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/procure-media.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/87755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/procure-media.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=87631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/procure-media.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=87631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/procure-media.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=87631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}