Emotional Marketing. Stop Selling Your Product. Start Selling What It Feels Like.
Why knowing everything about your own business can sometimes make you surprisingly bad at marketing it.
One of the biggest marketing problems I see in Phuket isn’t bad products.
It isn’t bad businesses.
And it definitely isn’t a lack of passion.
Sometimes, it’s actually the opposite.
Business owners know far too much about what they sell.
They live it. They breathe it. They’ve spent months or years developing it, improving it, comparing it with competitors, worrying about tiny details and learning absolutely everything there is to know about it.
Which is brilliant.
Until they try to market it.
Because customers don’t see your business through your eyes.
They see it through theirs.
And sometimes trying to convince a business owner of that is one of the hardest parts of marketing.
You’re Inside Your Business. Your Customer Isn’t.
When you own a business, it’s very difficult to forget everything you know about it.
You know why you chose that material.
You know why your process takes three days longer.
You know why your machine is better.
You know why your ingredients cost more.
You know exactly what makes your product different from your competitor’s.
And because those things matter enormously to you, it’s natural to assume they matter enormously to your customer.
Sometimes they do.
But quite often, they don’t.
Or more accurately, they don’t care about the feature. They care about what that feature does for them.
There’s a massive difference.
Let me give you two examples.
The Kayak Problem
I love kayaking.
I spent around 15 years working as a watersports instructor around the world, teaching kayaking and Canadian open boating — although personally, give me an open canoe any day. Much more fun.
So I’m probably more interested in kayaks than the average person.
Recently, I came across a newer style of kayak.
And I actually really like it.
It looks cool. It looks incredibly stable. The design is interesting, and there seems to be some genuinely clever thinking behind it.
Then I saw some of the marketing.
8.5 kJ versus 13.5 kJ.
59% more work.
17% faster.
0.83 km/h advantage.
Then we're into current speeds, head swell, resistance, energy per kilometre and how much work is required to maintain 5 km/h.
And I'm thinking:
You've got a really cool kayak. Why are you giving me a physics lesson?
Now, before anyone gets upset, I’m not saying the information is wrong.
There will absolutely be people who care about those numbers.
Serious paddlers may love them. Someone looking to compare the technical performance of different craft might want every single calculation.
But is that your main customer?
Because if you're trying to convince an ordinary person to buy a kayak so they can get outside, explore and enjoy the water, there is actually a brilliant marketing message hidden underneath all those numbers.
The technical argument appears to be pretty simple:
This design requires less effort to paddle and allows you to travel faster or further for the same amount of work.
Fantastic.
Now translate that into something I care about.
Paddle further.
Get less tired.
Explore more.
Stay out longer.
Have more fun.
Now I’m interested.
Show me someone paddling around a beautiful bay.
Show me someone who's never kayaked before discovering how easy and stable it feels.
Show me a couple disappearing off for a Sunday morning adventure.
Show me someone throwing it on the car and thinking:
Where shall we go today?
Because I'm probably not buying 0.83 km/h.
I'm buying Sunday morning.
I'm buying freedom.
I'm buying adventure.
I'm buying exercise that doesn't feel like exercise.
I'm buying time outside.
I'm buying the possibility of paddling around that next headland because I'm not completely knackered yet.
Thats emotional marketing.
And here’s the important bit:
The technical information still matters.
Use it.
It’s fantastic evidence.
But use it to prove the promise, rather than making it the promise.
Lead with:
Go further with every stroke.
Then, once you've got my attention, tell me why.
Tell me about the hull.
Show me the tests.
Give me the percentages.
Give the serious paddlers all the numbers they could possibly want.
But first:
Make me want to be in the kayak.
Don’t sell me 8.5 kilojoules per kilometre.
Sell me the extra beach I can reach because I’ve still got enough energy to paddle there.
Or perhaps the simplest way of putting it:
Stop selling me the kayak. Sell me kayaking.
Emotional Marketing
Then There Were the Diamonds...
Another recent conversation brought this home even more.
Someone was talking to me about setting up a jewellery business selling faux diamonds.
I need to make something very clear here.
I know absolutely nothing about diamonds.
Nothing.
So perhaps that actually makes me the perfect potential customer.
The explanation started with how much a real diamond costs.
Okay.
Then we moved on to what happens to the value of that diamond after you buy it.
Then how much value it loses.
Then the price of a faux diamond.
Then what happens to the value of that.
Then we started comparing the two.
Then figures started being written down.
Calculations appeared.
We were rapidly approaching timeshare-presentation territory.
Five minutes passed.
Then ten.
Then twenty.
And I'm sitting there thinking:
Does it look nice?
Because that's pretty much my entire purchasing criteria.
If I'm buying jewellery, I'm not doing it because I've completed a detailed depreciation analysis.
I'm buying it because it looks amazing.
Or because I think it's going to make someone feel amazing.
I want to look at it and think:
Wow.
Or, even better, I want to give it to someone and see their face say wow.
Maybe it makes someone feel beautiful.
Maybe it makes them feel special.
Maybe it looks spectacular without costing what a real diamond costs.
Maybe you can wear something incredible without being terrified of losing it.
Maybe you can have the look you've always wanted without the price tag you thought came with it.
Whatever the emotional hook is...
Find it.
Because if your customer has to sit through a 25-minute economics lecture before discovering why they should want your product, you've probably already lost them.
The Facts Aren’t Wrong. They’re Just in the Wrong Place.
This is the really important distinction.
I'm not saying specifications are bad.
I'm not saying technical information isn't important.
And I'm certainly not saying businesses shouldn't explain what makes their products better.
They should.
But sometimes we're starting the conversation at the point where the customer should finish it.
The specifications justify the purchase.
They don't always create the desire for it.
Your kayak might genuinely use significantly less energy to travel the same distance.
Great.
Your faux diamond might make far more financial sense than a real one.
Great.
Your hotel mattress might have 2,000 individually pocketed springs.
Great.
Your restaurant might import a particular flour from a tiny village in Italy.
Great.
Your gym might have the newest piece of fitness equipment in Thailand.
Great.
But...
What does that mean to me?
That's the job of marketing.
Marketing translates what is important about your product into something that is important to your customer.
Don't tell me the mattress has 2,000 springs.
Tell me I'm going to sleep like I've been knocked unconscious.
Don't tell me about hydrodynamic efficiency.
Tell me I can paddle further without feeling like my arms are going to fall off.
Don't spend 20 minutes explaining diamond depreciation.
Show me something beautiful and make me want to wear it.
Phuket Businesses Can Be Particularly Guilty of This
Phuket has some incredible businesses, often run by owners who are completely immersed in what they do. That passion is a strength, but it can also make you too close to your own product.
You start speaking your industry's language. You focus on what competitors care about. You get excited about features because you know how difficult they were to create.
And eventually, you start marketing your business to yourself.
Sometimes you need someone outside the business to ask one simple question:
Why should I care?
Features and specifications still matter. They build credibility, explain differences and help justify the purchase.
But they shouldn't always lead the sale.
First, make me want it. Then tell me why it's good.
Try looking at your business as a customer. Forget the technical terminology, development process and everything you know about the product.
What does it actually give me?
A kayak isn't just a kayak. It's Sunday morning on the water.
Jewellery isn't just stones and metal. It's the look on someone's face when they open the box.
A hotel isn't a room. It's waking up somewhere you don't want to leave.
A restaurant isn't ingredients. It's the night you remember six months later.
A boat tour isn't a boat. It's the day your kids still talk about when they're adults.
Your customer probably isn't as interested in your product as you are.
They're interested in what it does for them.
So if your marketing sounds like an instruction manual or a 25-minute timeshare presentation, don't necessarily change the product.
Change the story.
Stop selling what it is.
Start selling what it feels like.
Got it?
Good.
Jay Leshark
Shark 13 Marketing
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