How to be the Roger Federer of Marketing

Here at Scrappy Marketing we touch up on a lot of strategic and tactical issues, but there are some fundamental marketing basics that one needs to understand to be even mildly or wildly successful in marketing. To me, they are lessons learned from years of failures and successes in marketing hundreds of different products and services . From Fortune 500 financial products to dog bowls, these lessons hold true every time.  There's obviously more to a successful marketing campaign, but if you stick to these three, you're well on your way.

Always start with the consumer

And develop a product people will love. If your product is just ok, then your marketing success will be just ok as well. Don't launch a product if it's not good. Marketing is very easy when you have a killer product and excruitatingly painful when it sucks.

A great product:

• either solves a problem or fulfills a desire
• does so in a unique way

If those two points hold true, then it’s very likely consumers are willing to pay a pretty buck for your product, which brings us to rule number two.

Margins make the world go round

Here's the second most important aspect of a successful marketing effort - a healthy margin. The more money you make on every sale, the more you can spend towards marketing. That margin will also allow you to bring others to help you market and distribute your products. Take a look at these two scenarios.

$100 product, $10 margin

When you’re only making $10 on every ($100) product you sell, you don’t have a lot of options from a marketing perspective other than it’s a product bought and used by millions of people already. You have $10 to work with and every dollar you invest into marketing will cut into your profit margin in a big way.

$100 product, $50 margin

Now we’re talking. You likely have a product that people admire or need to have, which is why you’re achieving some very healthy margins.  You have the luxury of being able to allocate a good chunk of money towards marketing.

• You can buy more search engine ads than your competition
• You can invest more money into creating great content for your website
• Or, you can just pay someone $30 for every product they sell for you. In marketing it doesn’t really get any more fun than having other people sell your product for you , with both of you making money.

A perfect example to me are Bose noise cancellation headphones compared to Sony’s noise cancellation headphones. Both are great brands, but the Bose product clearly is being looked at as the superior product - which is why they’re charging $300 versus the $75 that Sony is charging. My guess is that the cost of goods sold is fairly similar, so Bose is looking at an extra $225 that they can spend in marketing or buying really comfortable office furniture for their employees.

So, the all important question. How do you get great margins?

1. Your product needs to either solve an important problem or fulfill a strong desire.
2. Your product needs to be unique - meaning you can’t have ten competitors doing exactly the same thing as you are.

The bigger the problem, the bigger the desire; the bigger your margin will be.

Keep it simple

If you have a great product and healthy margins, then you don’t need to overthink your marketing. If it's hard for you to understand your marketing strategy, then how can you expect your consumers to understand it?

Put yourself in the shoes of your consumer, and think about their problem/desire and where or how they’d go about solving such. The easiest sales you will ever make are to people who’re already looking for your product, or a product like yours. Start with them, build a profitable foundation and then go from there.

How could you start?

1. Would they search on Google? If yes, then start with some paid search advertising and make sure your website is properly optimized.
2. Who are the thought leaders in your field? Whether bloggers or journalists, reach out to them, offer your product for review and begin building meaningful relationships by providing them with valuable information and insights.
3. Where are people talking about your products? Maybe there is a popular forum where you could potentially buy advertising space on a performance basis. Offer the publisher a healthy cut for every sale made through their site which is a nice incentive for them and a risk-free way for you to build some awareness and sales.

Here's some more information on Trying Simple First.

This entry really has nothing to do with Roger Federer, other than he's the greatest tennis player ever (right up there with Boris Becker) and why wouldn't I want to associate this blog with him?

Roger Federer picture credit