The Advertising Edge

Happy New Year, thank goodness!! Finally, the “Ought” years are behind us and what a decade they defined. To say life was changed by these ten short years is like saying John Wayne was just another character actor. Historians will have ample fodder to muddle through as they try to define this start to the 21st century. For the rest of us, we can find comfort in knowing we survived relatively unscathed and in one piece, more or less. Now, it is time to saddle up again and see what kind of ride the next ten years will take us on. Personally, I like a horse with a little belly fire, but I could settle for one with more trail savvy for the next year or two anyway.

Marketing Tip: “Everyone thinks like I do, don’t they?”

When you are trying to sell your product idea, it’s natural to assume everyone you talk to thinks the way you do. If you can only show them the facts and stories that led you to believe what you believe, then of course they’ll end up where you are… believing.

The problem, of course, is that people don’t always think like you and I.

Watch two people of different political persuasions discussing why they support their candidate or their side of an issue. It doesn’t take long to see that each thinks the other one is stupid! You can just about hear them thinking the other person couldn’t conjugate an original idea if they tried. They think there is no factual basis for the other’s beliefs. They think the other person is clueless, and they are just parroting some talking head who knows even less than they do!

Same goes for diehard fans of your competitor’s brand, or worse, the clueless who should be using your solution, but don’t even care enough to use your competitor’s product either. If they only thought like you, and knew what you know, then there wouldn’t be a problem.

However, the challenge doesn’t lie in getting them to know what you know. It won’t help. The challenge lies in helping them see your idea through their lens, not yours.

If you study the way movements spread, you can see this is exactly how it works. Marketers of successful ideas rarely market the facts. Instead, they market stories that match the worldview of the people they are trying to persuade.

Yes, but there’s an alternative, one that you might want to think hard about: perhaps you should only market your idea to people who already think the way you do. After all, you’re not running for president, you don’t need a majority. Screen people by their behavior (what they read, what they buy, how they act) and only tell your story to the people who will embrace it. This is a lot easier to do now than ever before, especially with the help of a reader loyal magazine like Western Horseman.
-Excerpts for this section were taken from Seth Godin’s daily blog at sethgodin.com

April in Western Horseman: Horse Health and Home Décor are always in season

The April issue of Western Horseman features our annual Horse Health Round Up Advertising Section and a second Home Décor Round Up advertising section. If you have a product that fits into either of these categories and want to expand your advertising options, give me a call for special rates and other advantages.

A Little Something Extra:

It doesn’t work to leap a twenty-foot chasm in two ten-foot jumps.
American Proverb