Category / marketing

by Nathan Coumbe

Bad marketing & yogurt

I was at the grocery store buying yogurt for my wife made by a well-known brand. I called her on FaceTime to confirm which flavors she wanted.

She told me the flavors, and I found them – strawberry, mixed berry, and vanilla. 

Strawberry was red. Mixed berry was purple, red, and blue. Vanilla was a yellowy-cream color.

Later when I got home, my wife informed me I’d also bought lemon and black cherry (both of which were disgusting). 

The black cherry was a mixture of the same colors used for both strawberry and mixed berry. And the lemon was a lighter shade of the yellow that was on the vanilla yogurt.

Not only were the colors too similar to distinguish between them, but they were all stacked on top of each other in the refrigerator. Naturally I saw one flavor and grabbed all the ones in the same stack, assuming they were together for a reason.

Now this could easily be the fault of a merchandising person, but I don’t like to think that way. 

I’d like to argue that it’s the fault of bad marketing.

Marketers have a responsibility to distinguish between their products. 

Putting products in the same metaphorical “boat” as other products, then letting customers assume they’re the same, or solve the same problem, or have the same purpose? That’s terrible marketing. 

This is misleading to you, the customer. And when you bite into the lemon-flavored yogurt (thinking it’s vanilla), you’re in for a nasty, unpleasant surprise. 

That leads to anger, frustration, a bad experience, and a literal bad taste in your mouth. It’ll prevent you from doing business with them in the future.

Making product lines nearly indistinguishable from each other is a good way to confuse customers and prospects, frustrating them when it comes time to make a decision. 

My favorite case study for this issue (apart from yogurt) is Apple.

Most of their iPhones are indistinguishable from each other, with only the most minor differences between them. These are differences only an expert in photography, mobile device design, or someone with a lot of spare time on their hands would recognize. 

Their computers suffer fro the same issue—minor “improvements” that, to the average person, make no difference whatsoever in how they use it, what they get out of it, or why they should spend more (or less) money on it.

The solution is to make products that are remarkable, radically different from what’s come before. 

That way there’s a reason to buy one or the other. When customers have lots of options—and they can’t tell the difference between them—often the simplest solution is to buy the cheap one.

Or… Walk out the door.

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by Nathan Coumbe

Marketable skills

The Music School at University of North Texas has a list of what they call “marketable” skills that each of their degree plans develop. Skills include:

  • Performance communication
  • Excellent memory capability
  • Command of music computer programs
  • Pattern understanding
  • Improvisation and analytical capabilities

Now, as a former full-time musician myself and current corporate employee, I can safely say…

No one has ever paid me for any of this. Which is the supposed to be the definition of “marketable skills”—things worth paying for.

If you take Seth Godin’s definition of marketing to heart (which I do), then marketing means creating change in another person. And to take it a step further, it means creating a change in them that also prompts them to “pay” for your skills in some way.

You will then see that none of those skills do anything like that. However, they may give you the ability to accomplish that goal.

Those skills might allow you to:

  • Move another person so deeply that they become a raving fan of your music
  • Leave someone in awe of your stage presence and artistry (so they’ll come to more concerts and buy your albums)
  • Create a piece of music so astounding that someone tells 10 of their friends (and they tell 10 more…and on and on it goes)
  • Hypnotize an audience with intricate rhythms and on-the-spot creations so outrageous they beg to “know the trick”

All of these outcomes from your skill development lead to similar results: obsessed fans who tell other people and support your art because they can’t live without you.

The skills aren’t marketable.

But what you create with them and put into the world is.

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by Nathan Coumbe

Do you do what you THINK you do?

If you’re a business owner or freelancer, what problem would you say you solve for your customers? (Hint: it’s probably not the same as what they think.)

If you’re an employee, do you know what problem your company was created to solve? What its original purpose was? Do you know why customers hire your employer?

Odds are, what you think you do and the reason your customers actually buy from you are quite different. 

But if you want to increase your levels of success and sales, you have to align those two things.

Whether you’re starting a business or building a musical group, there are two marketing questions you must ask first: 

  • Who’s it for? 

And

  • What’s it for?

And if you work with others, you must also ensure they know the answers to these questions. If they don’t know, they won’t care, nor can they truly help you succeed.

“No involvement, no commitment.”

—Stephen R. Covey

In fact, it’s a good idea to solicit answers to these questions from your people. You might get closer to the truth of what it is you’re trying to do.

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by Nathan Coumbe

The new way of getting jobs

I used to create and edit resumés as a side hustle.

I learned soon after I started that it wasn’t the best business to run. Not because I was bad at it (my resumés were gorgeous and well-made), but because no one who could hire my clients ever got the resumés I made. 

By the time I started that little business, resumé screening software had taken over the business world. And most job postings were getting anywhere from 200 to 1,000 applicants a piece. No one was seeing my clients’ resumés.

Someone would get those jobs, but it was unlikely to be the person I was helping. 

If you read books like What Color Is Your Parachute? or 48 Days to the Work (and Life) You Love, you’ll learn that sending out resumés to companies only works about 4% of the time. 

That means you’d have to apply for 25 jobs to get one response (just a response, not a hiring decision). And those are just basic statistics—you wouldn’t actually get a response 1 in 25 times. You might have to send out 100 applications and only get responses on the last 4.

So what to do?

I’ve been asked recently by numerous people if I could help them fix their resumés. And I’ve declined every time. 

“I don’t do that anymore,” I say, “because it no longer works.”

What does work is simple: connection.

The old saying is, unfortunately, true: it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. And in the connection economy of the 21st Century, that really is the only thing that matters. 

By connections, I don’t mean the hundreds of people you barely know on LinkedIn. People who are creating content to (maybe) entice the platform’s algorithm in the hopes that someone will see them and say, “Let’s hire Jane.”

I mean real people that you know: friends, family, coworkers. The barista who knows your name. The husband of the banker who handles your mortgage.

If you want a to get a job in the modern economy (and 88% of those available are never posted online), you have to talk to a lot of people. 

Every job I’ve ever had, I got because I knew someone. Every. Single. One. 

Half the time I wasn’t even looking. The other half, I asked for help. I told lots of people with whom I’d built relationships that I was looking.

Now, I also know that’s probably some of my privilege showing. But it’s the advice that I’ve given everyone who’s asked me over the last couple of years. And for those who have listened—and taken ACTION—it’s worked out. 

Now, I’m no networking expert. Nor do I “network” in the slimy business sense.

I’ve just read a lot and built relationships with people.

In addition to the couple of books I recommended above, I’d also tell you to check out:

Both of these books have strategies on how to TALK to people in ways that will (eventually and without being sleazy) lead to jobs. 

Resumés don’t work. Connections do. 

But resumés are easier—a way to hide from the difficult, but effective, work of having meaningful conversations with real people. 

Do the thing that works, not the thing that’s easy.

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by Nathan Coumbe

Give the people what they want

But what happens when what we want isn’t good for us? Or downright harmful?

One example I thought of comes from the food world. 

Many of our favorite things—Girl Scout Thin Mints, potato chips, Coca-Cola, Reese’s Cups—were engineered in a lab by a bunch of guys in white coats for one purpose. To be hyperpalatable—hitting our taste buds in all the right ways to make us eat more, crave more, and buy more. 

The problem is this: these things are designed to be easy to eat in massive quantities and to play on the chemical reactions in our brains to make us want them more and more all the time!

Now, they would argue that they’re just “giving people what they want”. Meeting market demand. And there’s some truth to that. 

If they suddenly went back to using more natural, rather than chemical, ingredients, customers would notice. We’d hate it… and probably get REALLY upset with these companies too.

 If they made them less cravable, crunchable, salty, delicious—they would be more like fruits and vegetables, lean proteins, and other whole, mostly unprocessed foods. 

Now, those real foods taste great, but they don’t have the same impact on our taste buds and brains as do our packaged foods. There’s just no comparison. 

Which is why it’s hard to make the switch. An apple just doesn’t taste as good as a Thin Mint. (Believe me, I’m speaking from experience here). 

But again, the problem occurs when these things take over our lives, causing massive health issues like diabetes, high cholesterol, hypertension, and others. And we can’t stop ourselves because our brains are being played on directly—it all just tastes so damn good!

Now, I’m not saying the government needs to get involved in things like this. Or that people need to be told what and what not to eat. I’m simply asking a question:

How do we embrace a free market system, a “give the people what they want” system, when what we often want is terrible for us? 

Is there a good solution? Probably not. They all come with downsides, some of them quite severe. 

Such is life in the 21st Century.

***As an aside, let me be clear: there are no good foods and bad foods. Don’t put labels on your stuff like that. There’s no quicker way to drive yourself nuts than to do that. Think of your foods on a continuum from “Eat More” to “Eat Less”. 

Unless you like to eat dryer lint or chug anti-freeze, there probably isn’t anything you should put in a “Don’t Eat” category. 

The purpose of today’s post was more philosophical: an exercise in mindfulness on my part.

by Nathan Coumbe

But do people care?

One of the keys to successful businesses and fulfilling careers is solving interesting problems.

Solving problems creates value, and value creates wealth.

But there’s a catch: other people have to care about the problem you solve. And they have to care enough about it to pay for it.

One of the first problems I solved for people was based in the music world. 

I knew people wanted to learn the drums. The problem was there wasn’t an easy-to-find drum teacher in the area. 

There were scores of drummers who taught, and I was nowhere near the best one. But… no one knew how to find them. 

So my solution was simple: I made business cards and left them on the counter at my local music store. And it worked: I got a lot of inquiries and a number of students. 

Another problem I wanted to solve (which I, at least, thought was interesting), was the massive littering issue at the park near my home. 

I had the idea to buy lots of cheap garbage cans and place them all over the park. In doing so, I thought I’d make “the garbage can is too far away” excuse moot. 

But I soon realized the idea wouldn’t work for one simple reason: no one else at the park cared about littering. It was the furthest thing from their minds.

Sure, I might have been able to persuade a few people through extensive marketing efforts (maybe), but it would truly have been a lost cause.

Finding a problem to solve is the first step. Next you have to figure out if other people care about it.

by Nathan Coumbe

There are no good pharmaceutical ads

I saw a commercial for a new drug the other day… And I have to say it was one of the worst attempts at advertising/marketing a product I’ve ever seen.

But then I realized—they’re all the same. There are no good commercials for medications. 

Setting aside the fact that I genuinely believe Pharma companies should not be allowed to market products to the public—(isn’t it a doctor’s job to have those conversations?)—how can these companies make so much money and yet create such terrible videos?

Here’s how it plays out:

Picture some generic guy riding a horse, rock climbing, skydiving, or walking across hot coals—that’s how they always open. And you can’t relate because 99% of us don’t do the things these companies claim are the “normal” their meds will get you back to. 

The “normal guy” turns to the camera and says, “I have moderate to severe tuber-itis-osis.” Because, of course, that’s how we all talk. Whenever someone asks us what’s wrong, we label it “moderate to severe.”

Then they tell you about this great new medicine to fix the problem… Except NOTHING in these commercials tells you anything about the benefits you can expect from the drugs.

Instead, you’re treated to a 90-second monologue about all the grave, even deadly, side effects this “breakthrough drug” might cause, which plays over a backdrop of iMovie edits of random people walking through deserts or the Grand Canyon.

This violates every rule of marketing—there are no benefits to us and nothing but drawbacks are ever mentioned. It’s too long and drawn out, never gets to the point, and doesn’t answer “what’s in it for me?” What school did they go to?

Then, they wrap up by telling us to “ask our doctor” about this new medication. Nope—I’m not doing that.

It’s the doctor’s job to stay current on what works best, not ours. We don’t have a medical degree or the domain knowledge to make suggestions to our physicians.

Imagine the millions of dollars wasted each day these ads run. Money that could be spent making better meds, doing more research, or put to any number of better uses. 

Maybe Big Pharma should market to the doctors… And let THEM have these conversations with us. 

It’d save them a lot of money and the viewers a lot of boredom.

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by Nathan Coumbe

Would they miss you?

“Stop interrupting what people are interested in, and become what they’re interested in.”

—David Beebe, VP of global creative & content marketing at Marriott International

The essence of permission marketing is this:

Build an audience that wants to hear from you.

Create businesses, products, and services for people that will actively seek you out instead of trying to avoid you when you come knocking.

You’ll know you’re doing it right if you can answer “yes” to the following question:

Would they miss you if you were gone?

by Nathan Coumbe

Ruining a business is simple

It amazes me how one person can have such a tremendous effect on a business’s success or failure.

I’m talking, of course, about the experience someone has when they interact with any one individual employee of a business.

If the customer has a bad experience, the obvious thing that’ll happen is they’ll swear off the company completely.

“Well, I’m never going back to that place…”

And the funny thing is this: after a few months, or even a few years, that person who delivered the horrible experience is probably long gone…

Yet you STILL never go back. 

They don’t just ruin things in the moment – they ruin them long-term… Possibly forever. 

And let’s not forget the fact that if the employee threw a tantrum in front of lots of other customers, they probably won’t come back either.

But it goes even further than that.

Do you know what people love to talk about even more than a great experience?

The worst experience they’ve ever had!

That’s why all the reviews for every single business you’ll ever read are 90% one-stars. 

Nobody ever writes about a decent, 3-star experience they had… And we rarely take the time to write about the great experiences – it’s too much work.

But when we’re angry, fuming, and vengeful, nothing gives us more satisfaction than to feel like we’re ruining a business.

So we tell the others. And word spreads. And those people who’ve never had a bad experience with the business decide not to patronize it… For fear of having a bad experience. 

Here’s a simple idea for all of us in business: adopt the ideas of Victor Krulak, the former commandant of the US Marine Corps. 

He wrote about the “strategic corporal” which insists that the entire outcome of a war rests solely on the lowest paid, most beaten-down, hardest working Marine on the frontline. 

That Marine bears the brunt of the fighting. And if they do something terrible, they ruin the image of an entire nation… Especially now that everything is seen by everybody.

The solution is to treat your lowest paid, frontline employees as the most important part of your organization. Because they absolutely are!

Those who deal with customers on a daily basis are the strongest marketing force you have, aside from the customers themselves through word-of-mouth.

Treat them as the most important people in your company, compensate them well, and train them to represent the brand you want your business to embody.

by Nathan Coumbe

Here’s how to know if you’re manipulating someone…

If they knew EXACTLY what you knew about your…

  1. Product
  1. Service
  1. Idea

And knowing exactly what you know, they wouldn’t…

  1. Buy it…
  1. Use it…
  1. Believe it…

Then, yes, you’re manipulating them. 

On the other hand, if they knew exactly what you know, and they STILL wanted to engage with it, you’re doing something right. 

Don’t create or sell things you aren’t proud of.