Are Your Products Valuable or Cheap?

Would you rather advertise your products as valuable or cheap? This might sound like a trick question, but it raises an important point about how people perceive your products.

Consider these advertising messages:

"Labor Day Sale with 40% off select merchandise!"
"We have the lowest prices in town!"
"Act now and receive a 25% discount!"

They all emphasize how inexpensive the products are, in hope that more customers will come in for a good deal. This can be an effective way to generate more sales, but there is a risk in focusing too much on low price. Customers may come to see your products as cheap and not valuable.

Advertising trains people how to think about your products. If your primary advertising message is about how low the price is, how would people perceive your product? That it is a good deal, perhaps, but what else? Since low-priced products tend to have lower quality or fewer features, they might imply this is true about your product, even if it is not. Moreover, you are training customers to be motivated by its low price rather than its quality characteristics and the benefits it provides. If customers are not appreciating the quality, they are less apt to pay a fair price or to be loyal customers if someone else were to offer an even lower price.

As a coffee drinker and regular Starbucks customer for 10 years, I have never seen them offer a sale or discount on coffee drinks. They promote the quality and variety of coffee beans, always introducing new blends and specialty drinks. I don't go to Starbucks because it is the cheapest cup o' joe in town; I go because the coffee tastes good.

So it is better to advertise your products as valuable instead of cheap. Promote their quality characteristics and benefits, so customers buy for the right reasons, fully appreciate the product and are willing to pay a fair price. While it is okay mention affordability or low prices, don't make this the primary emphasis unless you have a true low-cost business model like Wal-Mart or JetBlue.

Be Unique. Be Specific.

We often see advertisements that proclaim the uniqueness of a product or service, such as:

"A dining experience unlike any other"
"The most unique photography"
"Retirement living redefined"

While I believe that being unique is a good thing, the problem with these ads is they stop there. They don't go on to answer the question, "In what way? How are you different?" They build anticipation without delivering the punchline. This leaves the audience sort of shrugging and wondering and unconvinced.

So by all means tell people how your business is unique. In fact, the tagline for Apropos is: "Be distinct. Be original. Be apropos." But perhaps we should add one more to the list: "Be specific." In that spirit, here are some ideas for completing the aforementioned ads:

"A dining experience unlike any other - gourmet French cuisine that is casual and affordable"
"The most unique photography - individual and family photos in natural, outdoor settings"
"Retirement living redefined - around an active lifestyle with golf, social events and travel"

Marketing Is About Them

Many think that marketing is about tooting your horn, showing off and strutting your stuff. "Look at me. I'm the best!" I would disagree. Good marketing is about "them" - the people you want to reach, your target market, potential customers and clients. It starts with putting yourself in their shoes and, in your mind, turning to face your business. What needs and wants do they have? How can your business meet them? What about your business is unique and valuable to them? Find a way to express the answers to these questions so that it resonates with your audience. Then get this message to them, over and over, until they are familiar with your business and start becoming customers. And before you know it, you are marketing with the best of them!

Listen and Play What's Not There

In my first semester at Babson College, all students were required to perform an original, creative work at a talent show attended by everyone. The purpose was to push us linear, type-A MBA students out of our element and teach us to think creatively and outside the box. Students were assigned to areas like acting, poetry and story writing. I was assigned to music, much to my dismay since I am musically illiterate.

We "musicians" then attended a class taught by a colorful man who wore a beret and no shoes. He said he enjoyed traveling to India to learn their style of music, and that he did not own a car so he rented one to drive to the class. The instructor proceeded to hand out our musical instruments, which consisted of simple, home-made contraptions that strummed or clacked or gonged. After some discussion, he gave us instructions for a group musical performance: "Listen and play what's not there." Then he turned out the lights.

At first there was silence in the room. Then someone played a note. Another followed and still more, until the room came to life with a variety of sounds that ebbed and flowed in rhythms that someone later described as "tribal". The music built slowly to a crescendo, died down, then built up again. It was a strange and enlightening experience. There was no structure, but somehow a coherent form of improvisational music emerged from a roomful of non-musicians sitting in the dark.

All we did was listen and play what's not there. As it turns out, this is good advice for marketing. It describes how to find an original, distinct voice that will stand out in a crowded market and be relevant. Come to think of it, this little instruction is also great advice for life!