The Isolated Entrepreneur

You can take a boring, every day product and give it some marketing pazazz.

Take a look at these examples:

• Facial tissue.  It is not about blowing your nose.  It is about why people blow them - weddings, sad movies, and the birth of a baby.
• Diapers.  It is not about smelly, poopy diapers.  They are about babyhood - babies playing, toddlers running around, babies falling on their bottoms.
• Glue.  It is about fixing broken memories (a vase from grandmother).
• Fix-a-flat tire foam.  It is not about fixing a flat, but about security and getting to important events such as a wedding or child’s recital on time.
• Web site hosting.  It is about sharing memories (photos, email, stories) and getting tasks done (buying a product).

When coming up with a method for marketing your product, look at the human factor. Don’t tell your audience what your product does.

Tell a story.   What emotions does it evoke? People buy products that they have an emotional attachment to.

If you haven’t checked out Microsoft’s Small Business Summit yet, you might want to.  It’s free.  Although the live sessions will finish this afternoon, the recorded sessions are starting to be made public.  They are released 72 hours after the session has completed.

On the first day of the Summit, one of the speakers was Julie Clark, Founder of Baby Einstein.  What a great story.   Just like many of us, she started her business out of her basement when she was staying at home with her baby.  In five years, she had a national brand with over $22 million in sales - and with only six employees.  *Wow*

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