How do you stand out in a sugar-sauced world, where candy coatings get their own candy coatings and everyone under the sun is fighting to make their offer sweeter, juicier, and better?
You’ve got something good to offer.
You’ve got something important to do.
But what good does it do, if you can’t get noticed? Now the good news is, it takes a lot less than you think. But the better news is that the fix doesn’t just make you stand out. It explodes your market.
Here’s a true story…
When I was a little kid, my mom used to make donuts with blue frosting about once a year. She knew I loved anything blue, and I could never get enough. (Never mind the fact that they were the exact same flavor as the white ones. They were blue!)
Every time I finished gobbling them up, I shed a small tear, knowing that I’d have to pine for blue edibles for another year.
Anyway, fast forward a bit, and one day, I’m at a carnival when I see something that made my young eyes bulge out of their sockets.
Blue. Cotton. Candy.
It was as if the skies parted and my prayers were answered. Finally someone out there understood the great wisdom of the universe: all foods should be blue. As time went on the market seemed to catch on, too. There was blue gum, blue drinks, blue M&M’s…
You name it, there was sweet, blue bliss.
Never mind the sugar highs or the color-stained teeth. Blue was good.
And that’s the thing about people.
For example, Starbucks used blue to killer effect, when they promoted their ungodly, but vastly successful, blue and pink sugar bomb known as the Unicorn Frappucino (sorry, blue, even I have my limits.)
But to be clear, this isn’t just about marketing stunts and cheap salesmanship.
It’s not that gimmicks are the end goal.
But they open the door to get people interested enough to build real connections and change how people see you.
The truth is, in any form of marketing, there are always two steps. First, you go along. Then you get along.
What most people ask when they want to stand out is how they can be better.
What they forget to ask is what gets their audience’s attention.
But isn’t that really the key?
Better is only useful, if people bother to learn about you in the first place.
And the thing is, better is hard. It’s time-consuming and challenging. But getting attention is comparatively easy. It’s inexpensive and fast.
More importantly, it just works.
For example, look at Blendtec. If you’ve ever seen the “Will it Blend” videos, you know a Blendtec blender can pulverize an iPhone into a fine powder. Does that make it a better blender? Not necessarily. But it sure as hell sells.
Or look at Dove. David Ogilvy said that he could have made it a soap for men with dirty hands.
Instead, he made it a beauty bar for women with dry skin.
And that made all the difference.
That’s the real power of focusing on the blue. When you figure out what captivates your audience, it creates an indelible impression that gets under the skin. Better yet, if you do it right, it gives you uncontested ownership in your corner of the universe.
And it’s always out there for the taking.
Everyone can do it. It just takes some creativity.
Because no matter how fast the sky is falling and how often it falls, there’s always a way to reach people. There’s always a way to make yourself heard even in the middle of the herd, and fortunately, most people just never bother to ask the right question.
After all, even now, you can still find me at the candy shop from time to time picking up some blue sour belts.
So, what’s your audience’s blue?
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