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Meet your Cheif.. Chef.. Creative.. Marketing Officer. I’m still waiting for my headshots to get back from the developers so this AI-generated image will have to do for now.

Wait – are you from the future or the past? Neither.

I’m in the present: An amalgamate of my current reality, past memories and future forecasting.

OK – you’re losing us.

Read back what I wrote. There’s a point to all of it. Let me explain:

“Having a balanced sense of all three tenses when you approach marketing is crucial to your success.”

“Why reference a photo development lab?”

In today’s world printing physical photos on film seems antiquated. On the surface I’d say you’re absolutely right.

Why would I a.) take the time to drop off and pick up my film? b.) pay for photos that I can’t see? c.) wait days to weeks to see the results?

Since we’ve been both blessed and cursed with the mindset of instant gratification, these complaints are valid.

For the first time ever, we live in a world where we can pay more, to do less for our daily and weekly routines.

Why drive to the grocery store to shop for groceries when you can pay a little extra to have it delivered to your house?

Why go pick up your take out order when you can pay a little extra to have it delivered to your door?

Circling back here: Does that render film development and printing valueless?

NO.

I would challenge you to look at what makes that process valuable on an emotional level.

Printed photos are printed “memories”. They are NOT the 40 pictures of yourself that you only liked one of to post on social media. They’re solidified moments captured in physical time and space. There’s a purity to analog that can’t be matched by one and zeros (digital).

Now zoom out – What I’m really saying, if you’re still with me, is that just because something is old doesn’t mean it doesn’t work.

Consumers are emotional buyers.

Value is in the eye of the beholder. This may be a gosh reference but bare with me.

If you’ve never driven a Ferrari you’d look at the price tag and say, “who in their right mind would spend that on a car?“

Once you get inside a Ferrari, take a drive on an open highway, and feel the power and attention it commands (or the illusion of such) you foster a feeling beyond, “this is just a car.”

Now you find yourself justifying such an objectively insane price point because you FEEL connected to a positive experience.

Feeling is the differentiator.

Maybe that experience was beyond the thrill of a naturally aspirated flat-plane crank V8 – but the way you felt you were perceived by others.

Technically he can get from point A to point B in a vehicle that’s a sliver of the price, but will it be exciting? Will he receive recognition? Likely not.

The value is defined by the buyer’s emotional attachment. They’re buying more than a car, they’re buying their desires.

Emotional Angles

You want to test different emotional angles when communicating an offer to your audience.

1. Monetary Value Adds: or the illusion of such, is great way to draw in your audience with the feeling of “getting a deal.”

Before the e-commerce shopping boom it was very common for people to clip out coupons from printed ads. The technology has changed, but the emotion remains the same.

From my experience marketer’s will create artificial deals. Creating the illusion of getting a deal. Picking products with high-perceived value and low cost of goods is a great formula to utilize this tactic.

2. Guarantees & Warranty: People tend to be looser on their wallets when they feel like they’re making “an investment”.

It’s unfortunate but the sentiment around product quality in today’s world is, “they don’t build them like they used to.”

Providing a warranty indicates to customers that you stand behind your product and a pledge to support them post purchase.

3. Problems & Solutions: There’s value in alleviating customer woes.

Pain-points are emotional. People feel that when they reduce any sort of inconvenience or worry, that they’re better for it.

Let’s go back to Instacart’s model. Their pain point is that shopping for groceries takes too much time. Between leaving your home, parking, physically shopping for items, driving home to then manually carry everything back inside.

Their solution: Grocery delivery service.

Why spend time when you can spend a little extra money to get your time back?

4. Raise in Status and/or Acceptance: People want to belong.

Let’s jump back to the Ferrari example. Aside from raw materials, skilled labor cost, limited production etc.. Ferrari’s can ask for 100’s of thousands more than a more generic automaker.

Ferrari has created a community and that community has a reputation. When you’re buying a Ferrari you’re buying in to a greater network. You’ll cross people you may never have if you didn’t have one.

Is that value worth 100’s of thousands? That’s subjective. However you can’t argue that they’ve built their brand around status, which is the driving force in their buyer’s minds.

On a smaller scale, it’s as simple as why many choose to buy Nike over Sketchers. They’re both shoes, but one has higher perceived value which reflects on how you’re perceived by others.

This has been engrained in us to survive. We’re hard-wired to want acceptance from our peers.

Thinking in 3 Tenses

I think it’s important to have three visions in your marketing approach.

• The Past aka Data Analytics
  • This can vary depending on where you are in your business. If you have YoY data to analyze I’d start there.
  • From here you can analyze your business trends. Take in to account holidays relating to your business or events of structural changes as this will help dictate the value of the data set.

• The Present aka Offers and Strategy
  • This is your day to day plan. How do we keep flowing traffic to high converting offers.
  • This is where you take diligent notes of your tests and identify KPI’s. This way you can improve with higher probability as you have data to back the decision.
  • Optimize what works. Cut what sucks. Create more tests.
    • Trim the fat early and often.

• The Future aka Forecasting, Customer Retention and Offer Expansion.
  • You have a customer list built and sales are steady, now how do you maximize lifetime value (LTV).
  • Create new offers to test or variations of current working offers.
  • Look to sourcing supporting products that will entice your list to buy again.

There’s obviously more to be said here but my goal in writing this blog is to give you the overarching mindset to remain high performing and agile as a marketer.

Conclusion

Value has an intrinsic, subjective nature. In a world where we constantly look ahead to new technology and progressions, it’s important to review history and find the common threads.

These common denominators indicate the true life line of sales and marketing. The tools, platforms and mediums may change, but how you communicate feeling will always be king.

One last thing: Offers are the most important part of sales and marketing. Join me on my next post on crafting offers. Want it sent to your inbox? Join the mailing list.

Hopefully you’ve made it this far and you’ve extracted some valuable nuggets of information from today’s spew of marketing jargon. Until next time, cheers!