January 2004

Try Problem-Oriented Marketing

To attract customers, identify the issue you're addressing, not the jargon-filled solution.

By Derek Scruggs

In past sales and marketing training, you've probably heard the statement, "Sell benefits, not features." And the advice makes sense, particularly in the world of high-tech, where potential customers can be overwhelmed by the abundance of features (and don't get me started on the jargon that usually accompanies them).

This widely adopted "selling benefits" approach pops up on websites everywhere. For a quick example, take a look at this page I randomly selected from NetObjects.com:
http://www.netobjects.com/products/html/mtrxfeatures.html

This chart is right out of Marketing 101: simple, clean, not overly verbose, and virtually jargon free.

Now let's take a look at another company's product page: a page for Movable Type, a blogging software product made by a company called Six Apart: http://www.movabletype.org/

But wait. Don't look at that page yet. First, raise your hand if you don't know what "blogging" is. Don't be shy. You're not alone. I've spoken about blogging quite a bit in seminars, and, in my informal surveys, I usually find that about half the people in the room have never heard the term.

That's okay—this isn't a pop quiz. Quite the opposite. The problem is Six Apart's, not yours. Specifically, the problem is that Six Apart does not identify the problem it solves, and they're not the only guilty party. I'm picking on Six Apart because the company is considered one of the leading vendors in the blog market (blog, for the uninitiated, is short for weblog, which is a personal journal that's updated often and meant for public consumption).

Now let's go back to that product page:
http://www.movabletype.org/

The top of the page includes the following text:

"Movable Type is Six Apart's powerful, customizable publishing system which installs on Web servers to enable individuals or organizations to manage and update weblogs, journals, and frequently-updated website content."

Hmmm... So I contact Six Apart if I need to update weblogs, journals, and website content? You probably know what a website is, so Six Apart gets points for mentioning that. But what is a weblog? What is a journal?

Of course, these are rhetorical questions, so here's what I'm driving at: On the Internet, people are selfish. (Actually, that's true off the Internet as well.) When they come to your website, their number one concern is, "how can you help me with my problem?"

Sometimes the answer is obvious. If you want to buy a book, you go to an online bookstore. If you want to book air travel, you go to an online travel site.

But in many, many cases (and particularly in emerging technology markets), the surfer does not know what he's looking for. He only knows why he's looking. And the "why" is often best expressed as a question. Here are some questions that might be relevant to Six Apart:

• How can I update my website without having to pay a Web developer every time?
• How can I easily post my short stories and poetry on the Web?
• How can I keep my friends and family informed of my doings with a website?
• How can we post our kids' soccer team scores on the Web?

I didn't invent these questions. I hear them all the time from friends, family, and clients. In most cases, my answer is, "set up a blog with a product like Movable Type." Which inevitably leads to this question: "What is a blog?" These people are potential customers of Six Apart, and yet these prospects never use the words "weblog" or "journal."

So how could Six Apart do a better job promoting its business? By stating the problem, not the jargon-filled solution. At the top of the product page (and in my opinion, front and center on the home page), they could add something like the following:

   Do you want to...

• Use a website to update your friends and family about your activities?
• Update your website quickly and cheaply?
• Express yourself on the Web?

This is just one idea. Another approach might be to make statements instead of questions (e.g., "Update your website quickly and easily."). The key point is that the website identifies the problem it solves, not the product it uses to solve it.

This leads to the issue of whether or not Six Apart should brand itself as a blog tool, or an "update your website quickly and cheaply" tool, since the blog category is relatively well formed. While this is true, the product is still in the early-adopter phase, which means it only attracts savvy users who do, in fact, know that they want to create a blog. In addition, "blog" is one of those words whose meaning is in the eye of the beholder, much like CRM (an acronym I hate). Now that blogging is becoming more mainstream, I believe Six Apart has two options:

1. Take ownership of the word "blog." In other words, make it synonymous with Movable Type.
2. Understand what its audience means when it uses the word "blog." In other words, what problem do they hope to solve with a blog? Tailor the website to that understanding.

Of those two options, which do you think is easier and cheaper? And by the way, AOL and Yahoo both recently announced products in this category, and Google happens to own another major player, so what are the chances of succeeding at number one?

My bet is on door No. 2.

Like other marketing techniques, problem-oriented marketing is just one approach to a multifaceted issue. I happen to like it and think it's useful in many situations. It's not a panacea or a miracle worker, but it provides a useful paradigm that nicely complements the "search, find, buy" customer pathway that has emerged over the last few years. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

About the author:

Derek Scruggs is founder of Escalan, LLC, a full-service agency that helps overworked marketers get things done online. Contact him at derek@escalan.com.