A lot of industries, services and products, it is fair to say, are dull or lack that bit of sex appeal and wonder how to make a boring business interesting. But how do you make a boring industry interesting? In this blog post, I will be discussing 5 ways in which you can make your product or service more appealing and thus, easier to sell.
Avoid details the customer won’t understand
You know your product has all the latest technologies for your industry and it is state of the art but everyone else mentions those things too so really, for the consumer, it is simply white noise. Whatever it is your business is providing you need to ensure that you don’t do one of two things. Firstly, you don’t want to make the consumer feel confused about your product or feel stupid that they don’t know what you are talking about or you are being patronised by dumbing down your product/service too much either and secondly you don’t want the potential customer to be bored witless. Dull, safe and obvious advertising will make people switch off and worse, ignore your business altogether.
Your job is to empower your target market with the knowledge they can understand so they feel they are in control, understand almost as much as you do and that the product /service you provide can solve their problem or enrich their life.
Desire
Desire. A powerful word that conjures images of your more desired pinup, tempting you to be seduced by their alluring sex appeal. Your product or service too can be just as hot with the power of desire! Creating a real craving for your product to stop our natural willingness to judge and comprehend an adverts statement is something most of us can’t resist. Everyone wants to be the envy of others, to boost their ego, be one of a select group or to be desired or deemed more intelligent than the next and if your product or service can inflate the ego of your audience whilst they are unaware of it, then you will likely plant the seed of desire.
A company that has successfully used the power of desire is, of course, Apple. They combine their ‘technological advances’ and ergonomic design with the apparent ability that this product can not only do a lot of things for you but it is also ‘the best ‘ and comes with a price tag that ‘only a select few ‘ can afford ( or possibly, stupid enough to fall for the marketing depending on your standpoint ).
Be Emotive
We are emotional creatures of both positive and negative traits and really good branding will evoke our deepest emotions and help us make a connection with a company. Whether a charity promoting a good cause, displaying how someone is suffering and that you can make a difference plays on our good nature and compassionate side whereas products such as 02’s contracts try to use our sense of humour and want to have fun and reward by a cat talking about ‘ being more dog’ to an audience. A clever advert as cats and dogs are the most loved animals in the country and employing humour only adds to our sense of enjoyment and willingness to share the advert with others.
Emotion, even anger, jealousy and embarrassment all play a large part in remembering your service or brand. It is rarely a good choice to keep your brand-neutral and obvious otherwise you are likely to fade away into the overcrowded noise.
Tell a story
As previously mentioned o2 use a cat to tell a story about becoming more dog and how it changed their lives to a more fun place to be.
Storytelling is not a new concept, storytelling has been around since the dawn of man when prehistoric wanderers would tell of their tales drawing paintings on the walls of caves. By creating stories about your product or service you are entertaining your audience as well as informing them. If you think of the most successful adverts can you think of any from the top of your head that are purely fact-based and not creating a story or profile? I would be confident in saying its unlikely you can.
Conclusion, so how to make a boring business interesting?
In conclusion, how to make a boring business interesting you must firstly educate your audience and make them feel empowered, throw in some emotion or desire and tell a story to help embed your business or service in their minds as well as entertain them so that they are more keen to do business with you as they will associate the emotion they experience with your brand. To get noticed you have to not necessarily do things differently but offer something of value. What are your tips and techniques to help improve a dull or boring industry?
All these points are also based around the concept of AIDA ( previous blog post about AIDA here )
If you need support creating a new brand for your business or having a refresh please contact us to see how we can help.