5 Steps to a Fresh Marketing Idea
By Anne Miller
Please welcome a new guest blogger and FOB, Anne Miller. Anne is a presentations speaker, seminar leader, coach, and the author of “The Tall Lady With the Iceberg: the power of metaphors to sell, persuade, & explain anything to anyone.” Sign up for her popular monthly newsletter The Metaphor Minute at www.annemiller.com.
I received a request from the Marketing Director of one of the world’s largest educational publishers. She wrote,
“We position our products as solutions to solving various pain points, but the term ‘solution’ just seems so overused in the industry. Can you share some insights or suggestions for how we can imply the same thing without using the word ‘solution?'”
Play the Metaphor Game
I suggested the following five-step process to help her discover vivid metaphorical alternatives to get heard above the din:
- Be very clear about the concept you wish to convey
- Look at equivalents of that concept or dynamic in several other domains or worlds
- Select from those worlds your fresh expression for the original concept
- Make sure the chosen expression is appropriate to your audience
- Then, run that new expression as a theme throughout your product copy/presentation
For example,
I mean ‘solution’ as a positive outcome to a challenge or process. Some other worlds where the challenge-outcome dynamic plays itself out are:
- Transportation: Happy Landings, Soft Landings, Guaranteed Arrivals
- Games of chance: Catching the Brass Ring
- Fantasy: Making Dreams Come True
- Baking: Putting Icing on a Cake
- Nature: Growing Healthy Plants & Crops
- Sports: Going for the Gold Medal
I choose Nature: the concept of Growing Healthy Plants & Crops. It lends itself to many applications and it is certainly appropriate in tone and association. Immediate ideas to be refined:
- “Grow young minds with XYZ.”
- “Our products nurture the best in children.”
- “Develop Redwood Tree Thinking Skills.”
- Feature A can “provide the soil for the learning to take root.”
- Feature B can “water their thinking to advance their abilities.” Etc.
You can see that whatever this Marketing Director chooses, it is going to be much more engaging than ‘solutions.’
Stand Out in a Very Noisy World
The Metaphor Game is a fast way to give cliché concepts a makeover to get your products, services, and ideas noticed and remembered by your consumers or clients.
