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The Book · Part One · March 7, 2021

It's Not About You, It's About Them

The best marketing is not about you, your service, or your product. It's about your customer, and what outcomes they will experience after they choose your brand.

One of the things you learn when DJing parties is that you’re gonna play music other people wanna hear. You’re gonna get used to that fact real fast, or you’re not going to be working very long.

In any given week one of my favorite artists could have dropped a monumental album that I’d be excited to play all night long. But without fail the requests would come in, and they’d all be for that summer’s hit single of the moment.

If I had it my way, I would play 90s rap classics and r&b jams all night, instead of whatever was ultra popular and familiar at that exact moment.

Instead, I sucked it up and got good at playing what other people wanted to hear. It’s the only way to pack a night club dance floor and keep it packed.

When you focus on your audience / customers and not yourself, cool stuff happens. [Me DJing at Oak Room in Charlotte, NC circa 2014]
When you focus on your audience / customers and not yourself, cool stuff happens. [Me DJing at Oak Room in Charlotte, NC circa 2014]

And thus, we have one of the golden rules of marketing. It’s so important, I’m gonna make it big as hell - especially because it’s one we all need a reminder of from time-to-time:

The best marketing is not about you, your service, or your product. It’s about your customer, and what outcomes they will experience after they choose your brand.

AKA

Mario Marketing:

Marketing is about outcomes, not about your product
Marketing is about outcomes, not about your product

Let’s say you run a business called fire flowers. On your website, your ads, and your social media, you’d be super blowing it if you said stuff like this:

  • Our rare flowers take 65 months to grow
  • Our flowers are the perfect shape and grow anywhere
  • Our flowers contain a special mix of chemicals that when eaten produce heat and flames

Instead of this:

  • Wanna run around and throw fire from your hands like you’re some kind of super hero? Yeah? Eat this flower.
  • Princess Peach got kidnapped! Even worse, it was by a super villain that’s bigger than you and breathes fire. You’re gonna need to get big and throw fire to beat him. Eat this flower.
  • Do you wanna save the entire world but can’t because you’re tiny and the people you need to beat are giant and scary? Eat flower. Get giant (and fiery)!

So remember, it’s not about you, it’s about them.

Since I mentioned 90s R&B in this chapter, it’s only right to give you a playlist of exactly that: