A lesson in solution-based marketing from the automotive industry

As a society, we have a love affair with cars. We buy them for all sorts of reasons based on our family needs, personal preferences, tech improvements. We know that every couple years we're due an upgrade that allows us to refresh for our needs of the moment. When that time comes, we see what we like and we grab it. This all helps feed our insatiable desire for one-upmanship. And let's be honest - a sleek design, a fast engine, and drool-worthy color make them pretty sexy.

It would seem like vehicles are a pretty easy sell. For the most part, people know what they want before they show up to the dealership. They've already fallen in love with something and the time is right for them to act on this desire. But have you ever considered what truly that shapes that desire?

When you sell someone a car, you are selling them the freedom to go wherever they want, at a time of their own choosing, at the comfort, speed, and aesthetic design that suits their lifestyle. This is actually true of any mode of transportation, as anyone who has ever owned a boat or flown their own plane can confirm.

What you should note, however, is that in vehicle marketing, the manufacturers already know this and they craft their advertising and promotions to capture just this sentiment. Their ads are based on outdoor adventures, nights on the town, quiet entertainment of children, speed.

In historic automotive commercials, the actual auto features are a mere mention at the end. Now, the are rarely included at all. The next time you do see or hear a car ad, if you even watch standard television or listen to a radio station anymore, actually listen to the way they mention features. If you've never done this, get ready to laugh. They are usually the most ridiculous list of comparisons that the general audience just glazes over. "Quicker airbags than a Subaru." "More hand grips than a Tacoma." "Softer seats than a Volvo." Okay, maybe I made some of those up, but it's not far off from truth! Design features usually feature leg room, instrument dash, speaker systems. Functional features might list mpg, horsepower, drivetrain. But they are flashed so quickly on the screen or rapidly spoken so that no one is actually paying attention. Go listen to the commercials for the vehicles you have owned over time if you want to test this. Oldest ones feature seemingly random comparisons to other vehicles on features you would never have thought to care about. Between 10 and 15 years ago, they started quickly flashing more relevant features. And the recent ones pretty much just play music with fancy footage.

What we can learn from this, is that people purchase based on needs and desires that they have, for the latest innovations, and for their own inherent brand preferences. Hitting them with a list of features on whatever widget we are selling does not capture their interest; they're glazing over it to come back to in an RFQ, not during this early consideration phase when they are actually forming opinions and getting motivated to buy. Purchasing preference will go to the provider who recognizes what they really need and creates a solution that answers that need, relative to the cost and technical improvements that lead them to believe it will hold value for a reasonable amount of time, not to the provider who rattled off spec sheet data.

We call this solution-based marketing and it is done through strategic messaging development, campaign direction, and content marketing. If you consider the needs of your customer - what they truly want - and then your own organization's capabilities compared to those of your competitors, the areas should overlap, like this:

This is your sweet spot. This is what you market, it's based on needs and the emotions that those needs stimulate in customers that only you can solve. Show them how you are creating solutions for them based on those raw needs. And like the love affair we have with vehicles (and any budding relationship!), leave the spec sheet for later.

-----

Melissa Reali-Elliott has spent over 15 years marketing digital technologies. Her marketing efforts have supported organizations specializing in gaming software, IoT, RFID, supply chain, and power distribution to utility markets, including smart grid and microgrid applications, as well as industry verticals such as data centers, oil & gas, metal refineries, and food & bev. She is accomplished at developing and implementing innovative marketing, branding, and messaging programs that improve market position and drive demand generation, as well as inspire customer and industry engagement with a brand.

If you are just landing on this series, the background for its creation is in the first post here . The gist is that the data center industry where Melissa specializes does not have many formally-trained marketers dedicated to it and those that actually are are newer to industry. She wants to use her years of experience to help bridge the gap between industry influencers and technical marketers.

A general closing note from Melissa: In my efforts to share experiences and data that help others in the data center space to improve their marketing efforts, I often use both positive and negative examples, some of which will be from companies I have personally worked for or done business with. No anecdote will reveal proprietary information that can be tied to a company. Neither will I cite an organization I have worked for by name. While none are perfect, these companies have been fundamental to my success and have provided my life’s work. I respect them too much to attribute public criticism to their brands, though it is inevitable that those who have worked alongside me will pick up on certain references.