A few months ago I posted an article titled, “We don’t know what we don’t know.”
Well, just yesterday morning I was reminded again of this truth – and it’s price.
I was in a coffee house getting a cup of morning inspiration. The owner of the shop was starting a new, unrelated venture and had created a display of his new product on one of the tables. At a glance I saw a couple big problems with his marketing and packaging efforts. One of the biggest errors was that he had failed to mention any benefits or results or a USP in the headline on either the package or the flyer. Instead he had used his name and the description of the product: Pete’s Widget.
From work with my clients I know that a solid USP or customer-focused headline (or a name that implies a benefit) can kick up sales and response rates by 150% or more.
Stated differently, this business owner is going to have to invest 150% more cash, work, and sweat to get his product off the ground than if he were to make some small changes to his marketing messages. The problem is that he has no clue of his predicament.
How often you and I are content with the results of our efforts, when, if we just took a small step to the right or the left, they would bring in 100 fold the sales and profits and growth we are experiencing now.
It’s like we are digging for gold. The vein we are working is bringing a good return – so we are content. Yet, if we just dug a little further to the right or the left, we’d strike the mother-lode.
Sadly, unless we ever run into a problem that forces us to seek out new solutions – or we are constantly curious and seek outside input (especially on projects that are working well) we will never discover these mother-lode opportunities.
