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The 6 laws of marketing

The 22 immutable laws of marketing by Jack Trout and Al Rees is one of the most celebrated books in all of business. Now, I'm actually really proud to say that I've actually known Jack for around eight years and he's taught me a lot and I actually hosted a private surprise birthday party for him one year, which was super memorable and I'd learned a lot from him. So I really wanted to make this birthday super special. So I still remember buying tons of balloons and a huge co cake, which is his favorite, a big champagne bottle. So I would sit behind the couch just kind of drinking my champagne really quietly waiting for him to come home. And I just remember, you know, just not being able to hold it in any longer. And as soon as I heard that door open, I just surprise and you should have saw his face. It was a picture. It was so so memorable, especially when he said, you know, who the hell are you? And why are you in my house? Now, the truth is that the 22 I mean, the laws is one of the m...

ost celebrated books in the business world for a reason. It's very, very good and helpful. But the reality is that 22 laws is a lot and it's also important to note that those 22 laws are probably going to be more useful for businesses that have a little bit bigger. They're not going to be as useful for smaller businesses and start ups. So, what I wanted to do is actually take the six most important ones that I see help my clients the most in regard to marketing. So you can implement them into your own business and marketing strategy going forward and usually the best place to start is at the beginning. So let's start off with the law of focus. Now, the truth is that if you think of all the best brands out there, they all associate themselves with one common word, one word really sticks in the mind of the customers that they're trying to attract. For example, Fedex have worked extremely hard to own the word overnight, which is pretty nice as a delivery company because it suggests that they can get your package from where it is to where it needs to be very quickly. Now, if you're a newer brand to an existing market, one thing that you do need to be careful of is that you don't use a word is already being used by one of your competitors. Now, the most effective words are words that we already know in the language that we are most familiar with and no matter how complicated your market or how complicated your product is, for that matter, you need to make sure that you do select just one single word to associate to your overall and to make sure it sticks in the mind of the customer. And once you have that word and you decide which word that is, you then need to protect it within your marketplace and start to build associations with it all the time. Some of the great brands that have associated themselves with a single word are Red Bull and Energy Tesla and Sustainability, Cork and Happiness, Volvo and Safety, Google and Search Clinic, and tissues, Apple and Innovation, and Disney and Magic. Now the list goes on and on. And if you've already completed course, one of our five step brand builder program, then you should already have this word all tied up. But if you haven't completed that course, then do not worry. The best thing to do is to find a word that essentially benefits your target audience and then just make sure that none of your competitors are also using it. Now, let's move on to the second law of marketing, which is the law of Candor. Now, you may be wondering what that means. So I want to explain it quickly. Now, when you admit a negative, you will almost likely get a positive back in return. And that is because almost all negative statements that we see about ourselves are essentially taken as the truth just the way the world works, I suppose. Whereas positive statements on the other hand, are seen as dubious at best, especially in marketing and public relations. To make things simple, you have to prove a positive statement if you say to a customer, whereas a negative will be believed straight away. And the reality is that it's almost always better to admit a negative first. But in all fairness, admitting a problem is something that very few companies do. But when the company does admit a problem or hold their hands up, the customer is at least then open minded to what they have to see afterwards. The next law is the law of sacrifice. And that simply means that if you want to be successful one day, then you have to give something up today. Ultimately, you need to narrow your focus and build up a perception in the customer's mind. What can you give up as a brand? Well, there are a few things. One is your product line, another is your target market and another is your constant change. If you want to be successful, you need to keep your product lines fairly narrow. This means not extending it and selling a whole range of different things. At least not in the beginning. Keep your product offering to just one single type of product. This is called single product. Focus. It will make every aspect of acquiring new customers 100 times easier success in business is found by one of two different parties. The first is highly diversified generalists. This is the likes of Amazon that are huge and have economies of skill and they literally sell everything. I mean, it's their actual tagline, they sell everything and the other party that can find success are narrowly focused specialists and as a new brand and as a brand with not a lot of revenue or resources, you need to be a narrowly focused specialist. So specialize at one specific thing and don't try to be the place to go for pretty much everything. The reality is that Amazon and Wal Mart and all these big brands have already got that all tied up and they have economies of skill. So it's going to be extremely difficult to compete with them and constantly changing means you don't have the chance to be consistent and marketing much like branding or pretty much any other aspect of life only gets better with consistency. The fourth law is the law of opposite. As a young brand, you should focus on your comp and the market leader that you are competing with and then look to do the opposite to what they are doing. You have to discover the essence of what makes the leader who they are and then basically do the exact opposite to what they're doing. In other words, don't try to be better, try to be different. As Mary Neumeyer writes in his book, Zag, when everyone else sees, make sure you zag. It's very often the new upstart versus the old, reliable and by positioning yourself directly against the market leader, you open yourself up to ultimately attracting all the remaining customers that don't want to buy from the market leader. You have to present yourself as the alternative because as the leading brand gets a little bit older and maybe loses its way. It starts to get a little bit complacent and not shiny. But one thing that you do have to focus on is if you're going to do anything in regards to marketing, make sure you're bold about it. A great example of this is Burger King and how they essentially position themselves as being the exact opposite to mcdonald's, mcdonald's wants to associate itself with fast and efficient. Whereas Burger King on the other hand, wants to position itself in the exact opposite way. Remember zigging and zagging by essentially saying that its burgers are flame grilled slowly. This indirectly suggests more flavor and a better quality product and more the campaign from a little while ago is as bold as the con the message was suggesting that the burgers from Burger King are fresher and more natural and just having a little playful dig at mcdonald's and their business practices. Now, the fifth law is the law of category and if you can't be the first in the category, then you need to make a new category that you can be first in the trick is to find a category that you personally can pioneer. And the reality is it's not as difficult as you think. So when you're launching a new product or your first product, for example, you need to think, OK, what else is out there? And how can I make what I am offering either different or better than the other alternatives that my customers could potentially buy? It's far easier to persuade someone to buy something that's new as opposed to something that you are wanting them to perceive as better. So when you're first in new category, make sure you promote the category. Don't focus on marketing the product market, the category and then the product will be promoted as a result. Netflix is a prime example of this. They started off as a DVD by mail service and then swiftly moved and transitioned into becoming the first successful streaming platform. So by creating this category and dominating it because they were the first movers, they ultimately created term such as Netflix and chill if you've ever heard of that, and they dominated for a very long time and even still today. Now, what I'm about to tell you is potentially one of the most important laws of marketing, if not the most important law of marketing. And that is the law of perception because marketing is not a battle of products. It's a battle of perception. Now, this doesn't mean by any stretch of the imagination that your product can be poor. But what it does mean is that as you're marketing and building these associations in your customers' mind, these associations and perceptions often become reality. So for example, we think that Coke is the premium Coca Cola brand. When in reality, it's just what we've been conditioned to think over years and years of marketing and conditioning by the brand with that said, you need to focus on basically willing your customers' perception and building up associations that can benefit your brand from a marketing standpoint as opposed to just continuously telling the customer how great your product is because the reality is 99 per cent of is is they really don't care yet. Apple is a great example of this. They want to be perceived as an innovative and creative technology company, but we all know that every single time they launch an event or a new phone, their phone is just a little bit bigger, a little bit faster with a better camera. But apart from that, it's pretty much exactly the same so often it doesn't really matter what reality is, but more so what your customers eve's reality to be. That's far more important, Steve Jobs knew this and used this exact same approach to rescue Apple from bankruptcy jobs was a creative visionary and a little bit of a loner so I can really connect and relate to him because I am also a loner. Anyway, we're almost ready to start developing your brand's marketing strategy. So I will see you in the next lesson.