Make Your Product Familiar

One constant in advertising and marketing is that every new business owner we meet has more knowledge of their product and/or service than they could ever convey to a customer in the space of a :30 second commercial. It's at this point we have to convey to them that they must do two things. 1. They have to accurately relay the "value proposition" to the would-be customer, (I touched on this yesterday) and 2. they need to, in some way make their product or service "familiar." Well, they tell us, "it's a new product, how am I going to make it familiar?" And we respond that making something "familiar" is not about telling the customer everything (who, what when) about the product, it's about answering the all-important question of "why?" Why should they care about it. Telling them something that they already "feel" is true about how the product will benefit them. Relating it in such a way that they feel as though they've known about it, wanted it, had an idea about a similar product, etc. for a long time. You want that client/customer to say..."you know, just the other day I was thinking that someone should invent this....it sure would help me out with X." Voila! Now, when this happens it's familiar in that customer's head...he or she was able to relate it to a specific situation in his or her own life. "Familiar" = "Personal", and as we all know, "personal" is how the vast majority of business is done! Ok, now let's say that on some planet or in some weird dimension the above advice doesn't necessarily work best for you ... there's another way. Saddle up alongside of a brand that's already established. It's done all the time. License a specific design, logo, pattern for your product that already carries a lot of weight in your chosen competitive set. Set up a mutually beneficial partnership with a well-known, established company (brand) and leverage that name recognition to help pull you further down the tracks. Again, the net/net here is that if you want more sales for your new products or services, make them familiar to the customers. People buy what they know!