The Marketing Formula

Our seven-step marketing formula’s initial action is called superiority. This means in order for a business to implement the most effective marketing strategy, it first must ensure it provides a service that is perceived as being clearly superior to its competition. Superiority must be in terms of one or more of these five areas: quality, customer service, convenience, consistency or price. If your business is not clearly superior to your competition in one or more of these criteria, you can innovate your business to create superiority.

Determine the Emotional Hot Buttons

Start by determining your target market(s) emotional hot buttons for each of the five areas listed in the above paragraph. Emotional hot buttons include the important and pertinent issues people have concerning your product or service. This includes emotional issues such as frustrations, problems, fears, pain and desires potential customers have when buying and/or using the type of product or service you provide. Once you have identified the emotional hot buttons, you can figure what actions you can take to separate your business from your competition. You do so by initially holding a brain-storming session to determine solutions. In this meeting, let your ideas flow freely without any constraints, including budgeting and personnel requirements. Come up with dozens of ideas until you’ve completely exhausted your imagination. Then determine which have the most potential and feasibility for success. Once you’ve selected one or more ideas you wish to implement, check to see if your competitors have already put your ideas into place. If they have not, you have one or more innovations you can implement and promote. Next, create promotion that focuses on your innovations using the remaining steps of The Marketing Formula.

An Example of the Innovation Process

If you understand the principles involved in innovation, you can apply them to any business. Here is an example of a family dentist who wished to do something that would separate his practice from other dentists in terms of customer service.

The dentist found there were two major hot buttons concerning customer service. One was that patients consider dental visits to be boring and the other was that dentists don't do enough to prevent pain. The dentist and his staff held a brainstorming session and decided, based on a financial/market analysis, it would be worth the money to place a 60 inch HD TV in his reception area, 20 inch HD TVs in each examination room and to give away free DVDs. He tested this concept on his patients and they overwhelming told him they loved the idea. This being the case, he researched movies he could purchase that could reduce stress and fear. Then, to determine whether this idea was unique, he paid a friend to contact every family dentist in his community. As a result, he learned that although a few had HD TVs in their reception areas, none had individual TVs in their exam rooms. These findings motivated him to purchase the TVs, wireless headphones and 122 popular DVD movies that might reduce stress.

Since all of the family dentists in his area said just about the same thing in their ads (“we provide painless dentistry”), he created a campaign that took painless dentistry one step further. His headline read, “The only dentist in town that provides PAINLESS DENTAL CARE while you watch a movie you’ll love.” Then his sub headline read, “You’ll choose the movie and get to keep it too.” His second sub headline read, “We carefully chose 122 movies that will help relieve your boredom and take your attention off your treatment.” His ad copy then started by saying, “We reviewed 3 clinical studies that determined what kind of movies lower people’s stress levels. As a result, we chose the most popular comedies, family films and love stories.” He also created a report and added a section of his ad that read, “9 questions you should ask a family dentist before you commit to an appointment.” This gave those who weren’t yet convinced or ready to make an appointment a chance to first receive valuable information. By making this offer, he provided a confidence builder that resulted in more immediate patients.

This practice had to conduct the research and spend some money. Was there a big payoff? Of course! This dentist effectively separated his practice from his competition and demonstrated he truly cares about his patients rather than just stating "I care", as his competition does. This plus several other ads based on other innovations, allowed him to blow his competition away.

There are literally hundreds of actions you can take to innovate your business. Hopefully, the example above will stimulate your thinking. Call us if you would like us to help you create and implement a superiority strategy that will enable you to dominate your competition.

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