Recession Proofing Series – Marketing

 

We all know that sales are key to driving a successful business.

But it is marketing which is the precursor to generating sales.

The ideas in this blog are taken from Daniel Priestley’s acclaimed book “Oversubscribed”.

To become Oversubscribed as a business, it is necessary to create Demand & Supply tension.

 

There are 5 principles to becoming Oversubscribed.

1. Oversubscribed businesses make profit

You need to know what sets the capacity of your business.

To define this, you need to ask how many people can you leave feeling delighted.

So for example, for a 50-cover restaurant, the official capacity might be around people 500 per week.

• You need to reverse engineer creating delight. What can be changed to increase satisfaction so that people experience delight?
• Analyse the buying & selling process in detail from start to finish and see where improvements can be made.

2. The only people that matter are your people

This is all about creating your “tribe”.

Your tribe needs to be 20 times your official capacity.

Your tribe need to know of you AND like you.

In the restaurant example, your tribe would need to be 10,000 people.

• How can you be seen and noticed more?
• How can you become a Key Person of Influence in your industry?
• Where do your main competitors have a more visible presence?
• What can you do differently to grab attention?

3. First make your market, then make your sales

By signalling first (rather than driving directly at making the sale), you start to create the required demand & supply tension.

For the restaurant, looking to launch a new tapas night this would look something like a series of posts teeing the night up, asking who would like some Spanish flavour in their life on a Friday, etc. rather than launching the night and shouting “come to this tapas night”.

If the restaurant was unsure what night to run, it could send out signals asking what the tribe would like to see on a Friday night.  Demand is generated and then you’re primed to deliver.

Signal first, then sell.

• According to Priestley, it takes 7 hours, with 11 interactions across 4 platforms to get people to buy from you in the modern age.
• Do you have enough content available to enable people to know & like more about your business?
• How could you ask for buying signals this week?
• Are you creating regular content to generate signals and interaction?

4. People buy to resolve tension

People are not buying airplane seats because they like airplane seats.  They’re buying airplane seats because they like the destination that the airplane is flying to.

People have a current reality – they’re bored with where they are.

People have a desired reality – they’d rather be in the Maldives.

They have obstacles that stand in the way of getting from the current reality to the desired reality.  They need to pack, arrange annual leave, arrange travel insurance, find the cash for the trip.

When people become clear about their current reality, their desired reality, and what they need to do to get from point A to point B, that creates tension.

When people experience tension, that’s when people buy stuff.

If you want to be a really great business that sells lots of stuff you’ve got help people get clear about their current reality, desired reality and the obstacles in the way.

Most importantly, they need to know that you’re the desired reality and can take care of the obstacles to getting there.

5. People buy when the conditions are right

These three things need to happen for people to buy.  All three things have to be right:

• Logic – they understand that they need to act and that you’re the solution
• Emotion – they know, like and trust you
• Urgency – they feel a sense of urgency that they would be better off buying today rather than waiting

Most businesses are only good at one of these.

 

Strategy for 2023 – 3 campaigns

• Weekly campaign – there are 40 working weeks of opportunity to showcase your business, to generate new sales. Priestley uses the formula of official capacity/40.  In the restaurant example, it would be the aim to generate 12 (500/40) new customers per week.
• Quarterly spotlight – this would be something that creates excitement once a quarter. Maybe talk about a product or event that quarter that is exciting, interests and connects people.
• Annual message that ties it all together – talking about the big picture that showcases the benefits of buying from you.

The best way is to work backwards, figuring out the annual message, then dividing the year into 4 quarters and deciding what the spotlight will be for each quarter and then splitting the quarters into weeks to plan out the weekly message.

By doing this, you create the necessary demand-supply tension.

 

Our offer to you

We’d like to offer you a copy of Oversubscribed (paper copy or Kindle) to help with the points in this blog.

Simply drop me an email and we’ll arrange that for you.

If you’d like any help with Recession Proofing your business, please get in touch.