The first rule of White-hat marketing: know yourself
We already talked about what marketing should be and the difference between white-hat marketing and black-hat marketing; now it’s time to delve a bit deeper into white-hat marketing best practices and its scientific approach to sales augmentation and automation.
With the expression “scientific approach”, I clearly mean that even in marketing, a functional working method must satisfy the following requirements: 1) measurability, 2) verifiability, 3) repeatability, and 4) falsifiability. Marketing is often regarded as some sort of magical activity in which some person (usually the CMO) has to spend a considerable amount of money and, if he’s lucky or has the right connections, the result is some unforefathomable increment in sales.
It’s not the case, yet quite the opposite.
So there are indeed rules. A seasoned marketer has usually built his own set throughout his career, but they are more often than not based on empirical evidence (I did that, and it worked; I did that other thing, and it did not…). Using a scientific approach makes it easier to keep track of what works and what does not, thus helping to spare loads of time (and money).
When it comes to white-hat marketing, the first rule is “know yourself (and your product or service)”.
This rule is ancient (legends have it that it was written on the pediment of the temple of Apollo), and it is, generally speaking, very important also for one’s private life, but when it comes to companies, it is really essential. It often spells the difference between prosperity and doom.
Let's see what it entails and what consequences it may have.
To know itself, a company must have a crystal clear idea about the following topics:
In my experience, most companies usually stop at point one, and even on that, they have more than a few doubts. That’s a problem because it is obvious that if you do not know who may potentially buy your product, you will never be able to reach them.
Let’s revise point for point:
What the product or service is
You should be able to answer this question with a line. If said line resembles a claim, so much the better. A typical structure to this answer could be “My product/service (use its name) helps _____________ to_____________” or “avoids people to________________”, where the first blank space must be filled with your typical customer, the second with the problem you solve, or help people to avoid. You can clearly elaborate and make things better. Once you have a clear answer to the first three questions, you can summarise them all in one single claim (“just do it” would be a good example), but if you are not in that position, just stick to the fundamentals.
?
Who is the typical customer
The first blank space. It might be obvious, but the truth is it often isn’t. Most companies make the mistake of keeping the answer too broad when they should be narrowing their potential audience instead. So I’m sorry to say, but your typical customer will never be everyone. If it’s everyone, then you are doing something wrong. We live in an era of specialisation, and while we could argue this is not the best approach in many cases, we can’t ignore this fact either. On the other hand, the group of people you are referring to can’t be too small either. Otherwise, you will soon run out of customers. In a few words, you have to define an exact niche. For instance, if you are in the sports apparel industry, a typical customer might be “outdoor lovers”, “gym fanatics”, or “runners”. If you produce apparel in all these sectors, you must differentiate your message and your campaigns. You want always to consider one niche at a time, one product/service at a time. There are also economic reasons for this, the main one being that you will be able to split costs and better evaluate what works and what does not. Another critical piece of advice: once you have your answer, run some customer interviews. Believe me: you could be up for some big surprise.
?
How the product/service makes the life of the customer better
Let’s face it: either you solve a problem your customers have, or your product/service is worthless. Since everybody should start a business only once he has made sure that there is a market for his products/services, I take it for granted that any product/service on sale should be helpful to someone. You now have to put into words (the smaller their number, the better) what’s the problem you solve. Your customer has a desired result in mind when evaluating what you sell. If you describe the desired effect just like your potential customer is imagining it, you will indeed close a sale. This is often easier said than done. This is why you should ask your customers. Feedback from your target is essential: that coming from those who have already bought and that coming from whoever happens to visit your sites or channels, even by chance. I had an app getting to over 5 million downloads this way. We implemented the functions people asked for and dropped the ones they did not like, and we decided on the list based on how said functions could make the lives of our users easier.
?
Your competitive advantage
The competitive advantage is usually an essential part of the USP (Unique Selling Proposition). You must have it crystal clear and constantly communicate it to your customers. Why do people choose a particular brand instead of another? For this precise reason, the competitive advantage is better shared. And it’s a real one. You can spend all the money you want communicating something false that will work to bring people to your properties, but they won’t stick if they find out you promised something you can’t deliver… So, find a thing you really do better than others. It mustn’t be a big thing: your product could be more colourful, easy to use, or perfect for specific occasions, but what you say must be 100% true. Just one caveat: do not rely on your product being cheaper. A cheap product is often synonymous with a poor outcome, and among marketers, there’s a saying: “If you need to lower your price, you have nothing to sell but a low price”. So put your competitive advantage down on paper and hang it on a wall in front of you, where you can always see it.
?
What’s the base funnel
You now have everything in place, and you are almost ready to go, but there’s still a critical piece of information you need to have because that’s the first thing to change if you are not getting the results you expect. Where do you collect your clients? What channels do you use to reach them? How often do you have to solicit them before they make a purchase? These are no trivial questions. One quick way to make your conversion rate better is to try new channels or try new ways to call your customers to action. If you reduce the steps towards conversion by one or two, you will get customers much more quickly, and they will cost you less. In my experience, companies often have vague ideas about this point: they expect to get results out of Google Ads, Facebook Ads or other forms of promotion, but they get traffic and not conversions, and if they do convert, customers do not stick. The reason for this is that they do not know their funnel well. Therefore, they have no idea about how to optimise it. On the other hand, mastering your funnel is one of the best ways to enhance your business.
?
As a consultant, I usually dedicate at least a few days to study the above points in depth (and others I will delve into in another article) because it’s the only way not to miss the mark once I need to organise campaigns and content strategies. As said, it is important to keep things “scientific”, and one way to do it is to keep track of the right variables and produce small changes that you will register and check afterwards to see if they produce the desired change. Marketing is no magic, after all.