Marketing Lesson From Buttwipes (No Joke, Literally… Buttwipes!)

You might find this video hilarious.

You might find this video in poor taste (and maybe even offensive).

But whatever you find it, there’s a very serious… and very important marketing lesson everyone should take away from it.

First, watch the video…

DollarShaveClub.com’s first video went viral and has over 11 million views on YouTube since it was posted about a year ago.

This new one for One Wipe Charlies is well on its way with over 1 million views in about 3 months.

But it’s not the viral nature of the video I want to talk about.

There are a few lessons to be learned from it, but the one I want to focus on here is this:

Positioning.

See, plenty of other companies sell a similar product to One Wipe Charlies, but they call them the very sterile sounding “moist wipes” or “baby wipes”. The brands selling them usually include words like “fresh” and “gentle” in the name.

That’s fine if you’re selling to women and babies. But there are few things less manly sounding than buying fresh and gentle moist wipes.

The beauty of this video is how it repositions moist wipes into a product that’s quite manly. Yes, it’s a funny video, but it’s also very smartly done and well thought out. It appeals to men by:

• Calling the product buttwipes instead of moist wipes
• Using crude humor in the video that most husbands will find MUCH funnier than their wives (and will want to share and talk about with their friends)
• Using marines and machine guns

By catering very specifically to their target market, One Wipe Charlies come across as a much more masculine product to use.

How can this apply to your business (the positioning, NOT the machine guns)? Ask yourself these questions…

• What product or service do you sell that could be repositioned to appeal to a new or underserved market?
• What product or service do your competitors sell that you could reposition to appeal to a new or underserved market?

I know guys in the online marketing world who were struggling and decided to focus on one specific market. So, for example, instead of offering SEO and PPC services to all businesses, they just offered their services to law firms.

I know a web designer who changed his business model to just serve Non Profits.

There are accountants who position themselves to just work with doctors or with truck drivers.

And by repositioning their businesses to target a very specific segment of the population, they’ve had much more success.

DollarShaveClub didn’t just go after the buttwipe market because they wanted to make a funny video. They did their research. They saw an underserved market. And they took an existing product and positioned it to appeal to a market the competition is largely ignoring.

You can do the same thing.

Reposition the products/services you and/or your competitors sell so they appeal to a very specific segment of the market. If you do it right, you’ll capture a much higher market share than trying to appeal to everyone.

And, you don’t even have to resort to making crude videos to do it. Though, if you do, be sure to send me the link! 😉

The True Bullseye of Marketing

Last month, in talking about overcoming your prospects’ Fear of the Unknown, we left off with this…

“In fact, if you do it right, it can alter the whole dynamic between you and your prospects…and essentially eliminate your competition.”

To better understand how this works, I’d like to share two images with you.

They come from Bill Prenatt, owner of Simply Successful and founder of Experts 4 Entrepreneurs (a group I’m proud to be a part of). Bill is a highly accomplished businessman with a background in sales and one of the true gentlemen you’ll ever meet.

Last year Bill and I were having a discussion at a local coffee shop and he shared this image of the “Sales Universe” with me (click to enlarge)…

Basically you have different levels of prospects feeding into your business universe.

• The Cold ones know that your business exists but not much more than that.
• The Warm ones have heard of you and know a little about your business. Maybe they spent a little time researching your website or found you through some PR you got or a referral.
• The Hot ones are the true prospects that know about your business, know what you do and believe that you have a solution that can help solve a problem they have or fulfill a desire they wish to fulfill.

As Bill and I talked about this image and the sales universe more, it became clear that something was missing. And out of that conversation a new version of the bullseye was born (click to enlarge)…

See, what was missing was the true bullseye of marketing…the absolute dead center of the target.

This is where prospects come to you as fans pre-sold on you and your company. This is where there’s no other option in their minds. This is where you have no competition.

How To Hit the Dead Center of the Bullseye

So how do you get there?

It’s by eliminating the Fear of the Unknown and getting people to TRULY know you and your company.

Now the key here is you don’t do this by just talking about what you do but rather WHY you do it. Let people see what makes you tick.

In the last newsletter, I talked about various ways you can overcome the Fear of the Unknown from creating videos to consistently writing newsletter/blog posts to media appearance to writing a book and more.

Yes, it’s about content marketing. But not just putting out the same old content as everyone else.

It’s putting out content that connects emotionally with your IDEAL prospects.

Since I’ve started blogging regularly, putting out a monthly newsletter, writing for the Crazy Egg blog and just generally putting myself out there more, the effects of this phenomenon have become clearer and clearer to me.

I was floored the first time I experienced the effects of this first hand.

A Sales Call Like No Other

I’d received an email from a prospect who wanted to talk to me about managing AdWords campaigns for them. We scheduled a Skype call and the conversation was much different from others I’d had with prospects.

It wasn’t really a sales call. There was no talk about IF we would work together. Instead this prospect just wanted to know HOW we could work together and WHEN we could get started.

And it all was made possible by one article I wrote about Google AdWords that this prospect discovered online. An article that connected with him on an EMOTIONAL level. After finding that article, he did a little more research on me and Words That Click, read more articles, watched some videos and came away convinced I was the partner he was looking for.

By the time we talked, all I had to do was work out the fees and logistics with him.

That was a totally different dynamic than I was used to.

Living In the Dead Center of the Bullseye

Magical things happen when you’re in that dead center of the bullseye.

• You eliminate the competition.
• Fees are not much of an issue.
• And these clients have much more respect for you and the value you bring to the table.

And, by the way, it’s not just small businesses that can pull this off.

Look at what Apple has done. They have raving fans who line up for hours or more to get their hands on the latest release of the iWhatever. To them, it doesn’t matter what the competition is producing. They just want the Apple product.

Why?

Well, there are plenty of other electronics manufacturers out there. Some of which, arguably, may put out products as good as, if not better, than the ones Apple puts out.

(The fact that that last sentence will probably send some Apple fans into a tizzy gets to the real heart of why Apple’s been so successful.)

Apple’s created a strong emotional bond with their customers/fans. And they haven’t done this by focusing their messaging and content on WHAT they do.

They’ve done this by focusing more on the WHY they do what they do.

Check out an excerpt from a great TEDx talk from Simon Sinek that lays this all out simply and elegantly…

You conquer people’s Fear of the Unknown about you and your business when you put yourself out there. And when you do that right, you give them a glimpse behind the scenes of your world. You let them see the why you do what you do.

Now not everyone out there will respond…and that’s just fine. You don’t want everyone. You’re after your IDEAL propects.

As Simon Sinek puts it:

“The goal is not to do business with everybody who needs what you have, the goal is to do business with the people who believe what you believe.”

So take a stand in the content you put out there…

…let you and your company’s personality come shining through…

…let your prospects get to truly KNOW you and what you stand for.

Cuz when you do this well, that’s when your ideal prospects will become magnetically attracted to you. That’s when you’ll have people coming to you as raving fans who are planted firmly in the dead center of that bullseye.

And that, my friends, is exactly where you want to be!

The Paralyzing Fear Your Prospects All Share

It’s so pervasive, most people never think about it.

We don’t think about how it affects our own actions. And, in business, we certainly don’t think about how it affects our prospects’ actions (or nonactions).

Yet it’s one of the key things your business must overcome to get customers to do business with you.

I’m talking about the Fear of the Unknown.

Here’s an example of how it affects our perceptions and decisions…

On Friday nights, to unwind from the week, my daughter and I like to cuddle up in front of the TV. And we usually end up watching Diner’s, Drive-Ins, and Dives on Food Network.

If you haven’t seen it, the show stars celebrity chef Guy Fieri driving his 1967 red Camaro convertible around the country visiting independent mom and pop type restaurants. At each stop, Guy watches the chef cook up a favorite dish or two, then he shoves it in his mouth and gives it a rating like…

• “That’s money!”
• “The bus has just pulled into Flavortown station.”
• “This is Da Bomb!”

…usually as grease and/or sauce oozes down his bleached goatee.

During pretty much every episode I’m wishing we lived closer to the joints he visits so we could eat there. In fact, there was a pizza place he visited in San Antonio, with a brick oven imported from Italy and that made their mozzarella fresh on-site each day, that literally had me checking airfares!

Now, that pizza place aside, I probably pass by restaurants each day that are equally as impressive as the ones Guy Fieri visits on the show.

From the outside, however, I just don’t know anything about them.

On the show, I hear the stories about the chef learning to cook in her grandmother’s kitchen. I learn how they import specialty ingredients to give their dishes that extra special flavor. I see the pride they feel in making everything from scratch using only the freshest ingredients harvested from their local organic farm.

Maybe some of the restaurants I pass each day put the same care and thought into their food as the places on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.

Or maybe they just got served another health code violation and the chef’s in the back with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth with the ashes hanging precariously over the food.

I’ve got no idea.

And just looking at most restaurant’s websites usually doesn’t help much either. They all basically look the same…

Pretty pictures of food.  A menu. And some generic copy talking about how great their food is.

But it really doesn’t help me get to KNOW them.

So unless a restaurant is on a Food Network show, is featured in an article in a local paper or I get personal recommendations from people who’ve eaten there, I don’t know anything about the place and will likely stay away.

Why?

Because of the Fear of the Unknown.

It’s one of the main barriers that keep your prospects from doing business with you.

An article about Fear of the Unknown in Psychology Today puts it this way…

“We are quick to judge, fear and even hate the unknown. We may not admit it, but we are all plagued with xenophobic tendencies.”

These tendencies rear their heads in many ways on both a societal and personal level. But when it comes to small business, it basically means this…

When you’re an unknown entity, people have their guard WAY up. They’re afraid you’re gonna screw them over.

And they’re not judging you based on your merits, but on their own biases about and/or experiences with businesses like yours.

In order for them to do business with you, you have to overcome, at least to some degree, their Fear of the Unknown.

How To Overcome Your Prospects’ Fear of The Unknown

A few months ago I shared the 5 Essential Elements your website has to have to convert (a conversion being a specific action you want them to take such as downloading a free report, making a purchase, calling you, etc.).

One of the 5 Elements is Overwhelming Proof.

Overwhelming Proof is basically how you demonstrate your credibility. How do you back up the claims you make on your site so they’re believable and don’t come off as empty hype?

It’s really about overcoming the Fear of the Unknown. It’s getting people to know you and your company, seeing you as a credible option and, ultimately, someone they’d feel comfortable giving money to.

There’s no shortage of ways to do this. Here are some examples…

• Feature videos of you on your website and/orYouTube going on a service call, having a sample consultation with a client, or giving people a “behind the scenes” peak at your operation. This is all about demonstrating your expertise and the care and pride you take in your work and helping your customers. (Think of it as starring in your own little reality show!).
• Do a video interview of your programmer and have him describe some key challenges he had to overcome in building the software program you sell. This’ll be a great way to show people the detailed thought process and care behind your software.
• Have someone interview you about your business, key problems your prospects face, how you got started, etc. Publish it on your website.
• Write a book.
• An autoresponder series.
• Get featured in the local media and put the stories/videos on your site.
• Get speaking engagements.
• Blog on a regular basis.
• Send out a monthly/weekly newsletter.

See the common thread here?

It’s all about getting people to KNOW you and your business. To see you as THE authority. As someone who cares. As someone they can trust.

And this is REALLY important…

These should not be superficial, boring pieces of content about technical issues related to what you do.

They need to contain some EMOTION. They need to demonstrate your expertise, care and credentials so that prospects start to feel a CONNECTION with you.

Doing this can make all the difference in the world to your prospects. Instead of being another unknown attorney, dentist, financial planner, plumber, florist, consultant…you become a KNOWN and respected authority figure.

That’s the position you want to be in. And that’s why it’s so important to get your prospects over their Fear of the Unknown.

The good news is it’s easier than ever to put yourself out there and get people to truly know you.

Things like…

• Creating and editing videos
• Self publishing a book
• Starting a blog and/or newsletter

…are all pretty easy and inexpensive to do these days.

So take advantage of some, or all, of ‘em and let prospects get to know you!

Get the “Fieri Effect”

When a restaurant is featured on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives it often gets what’s known as the “Fieri Effect”. After an episode airs, the restaurants featured get slammed with people. Some literally driving hours just to sample the food featured on the show.

The good news is you don’t have to be on Food Network to get that effect. You can start using some of the content strategies outlined above to get prospects to know you better and seek you out.

Now I’m not saying you can’t get new customers without overcoming their Fear of the Unknown. (You can do this…especially in situations and markets where a prospect’s neck is bleeding so badly that they’ll buy from the first option they find.)

But most businesses would be a lot more successful by doing a better job overcoming their prospects’ Fear of the Unknown.

Because when you do, it dramatically changes prospects’ perceptions about you and your company. In fact, if you do it right, it can alter the whole dynamic between you and your prospects…and essentially eliminate your competition.

Next month, I’ll share exactly how.