بازاریابی از طریق داستان ها ، ارتباطات و تجربه افراد را تغییر می دهد

CHAPTER THREE

Marketing Changes People Through Stories, Connections, and Experience Case Study: VisionSpring—Selling glasses to people who need them

Each person has a story in his or her head, a narrative used to navigate the world. The extraordinary thing is that every person’s narrative is different.

A few years ago, I went with a small team to a village in India, trying to understand the challenges that VisionSpring faces in their work.

VisionSpring is a social enterprise that works to get reading glasses to the billion people around the world who need them but don’t have them.

When the typical person only lived to thirty or forty years of age, it didn’t matter that most people will need reading glasses beginning at age fifty. But as lifespans have increased, more and more people find themselves otherwise healthy and active but unable to work—because they can’t read or do close-up work. If you’re a weaver or a jeweler or a nurse, working without glasses can be impossible.

VisionSpring’s strategy is to produce attractive glasses in bulk at a very low cost, perhaps two dollars a pair. And then, working with local traveling salespeople, they bring the glasses to villages around the world, where they sell them for three dollars or so a pair.

The one-dollar difference between the manufacturing cost and the price is just enough to pay for shipping, for local talent, and for the organization to keep growing.

When we set up our table in the village, many people came to see what was going on. It was the middle of a very hot day and there wasn’t much else to do.

The men were wearing traditional Indian work shirts, embroidered, each with a pocket on the front. I could see through the sheer fabric that just about everyone had rupees in their pockets.

So now I knew three things:

Based on their age, many of these folks needed glasses. That’s simple biology.

Many of them weren’t wearing or carrying glasses, so they probably didn’t own a pair.

And most of the people milling around had some money in their pocket. While the glasses might be expensive for someone who only made three dollars a day, each person had access to cash.

One by one, as the villagers came up to our table, we handed each of them a laminated sheet with an eye test on it. The test was set up so that it even worked for people who didn’t know how to read, regardless of which languages they spoke.

Then, the villager with the laminated sheet was offered a pair of sample glasses and took the test again. Right there, instantly, he or she could see perfectly. That’s how glasses work. It wasn’t a new technology for these men and women, or an untrusted one.

After that, the sample glasses were removed and set aside, and the customer was given a mirror and offered a choice of ten different styles. Each was brand new, wrapped in little plastic sleeves. About a third of the people who had come to the table and needed glasses actually bought a pair.

A third.

This mystified me.

I was stunned that 65 percent of the people who needed glasses, who knew they needed glasses, and had money to buy glasses would just walk way.

Putting myself in their shoes, I couldn’t imagine making this choice. The supply of glasses was going to disappear in an hour. The price was amazing. The trusted technology worked. What were we doing wrong?

I sat in the sun for an hour, thinking hard about this problem. I felt like all my work as a marketer had led me to this moment.

So I changed just one thing about the process.

One thing that doubled the percentage of glasses sold.

Here’s what I did: I took all the glasses off the table.

For the rest of the people in line, after they put on the sample glasses, we said, “Here are your new glasses. If they work and you like them, please pay us three dollars. If you don’t want them, please give them back.” That’s it.

We changed the story from “Here’s an opportunity to shop, to look good, to regain your sight, to enjoy the process, to feel ownership from beginning to end” to “Do you want us to take away what you have, or do you want to pay to keep the glasses that are already working for you?” Desire for gain versus avoidance of loss.

If you’ve been living in abject poverty, it’s hard to imagine the pleasure that more fortunate people take in shopping. To feel the thrill of buying something never bought before.

To go shopping is to take a risk. We risk time and money looking for a new thing, a thing that might be great. And we’re able to take that risk because being wrong isn’t fatal. Being wrong doesn’t cost dinner or a medical checkup.

And if we’re wrong, not only will we live another day, but we’ll get right back to shopping tomorrow.

On the other hand, with the realization that maybe others didn’t think about shopping the way I did, or the way Western opticians did, I saw things differently. Maybe the people we were trying to serve saw shopping for something new as a threat, not as a fun activity.

Most teenagers at the typical suburban mall would bristle at the idea that they didn’t get to try on all the glasses, that they didn’t get a choice in the matter.

Most of us wouldn’t want a pair of used glasses; we’d want the fancy new ones. Even if “used” simply meant tried on once before. But it’s not helpful to imagine that everyone knows what you know, wants what you want, believes what you believe.

My narrative about how to buy glasses isn’t better or worse than the one the next villager in line had. My narrative is simply my narrative, and if it’s not working, it’s arrogant to insist on it.

The way we make things better is by caring enough about those we serve to imagine the story that they need to hear. We need to be generous enough to share that story, so they can take action that they’ll be proud of.

Consider the SUV

Most people reading this book don’t market cars. But most of us have bought one.

The question to ponder is: Why did you buy the one you bought?

Why do people who will never drive off-road buy a ninety thousand-dollar Toyota Land Cruiser?

Why pay extra for the Ludicrous Mode on a Tesla if you never expect (or need) it to go from 0 to 60 mph in less than 3 seconds?

Why put a three thousand-dollar stereo in your car if you only listen to a thirty-dollar clock radio at home?

Even more puzzling: the most popular color for cars varies by the kind of car being purchased.

If we’re unwilling to make utility the primary driver of our decisions when buying a fifty thousand-dollar vehicle, what chance does a bottle of perfume or a stick of gum have?

Marketing isn’t a race to add more features for less money.

Marketing is our quest to make change on behalf of those we serve, and we do it by understanding the irrational forces that drive each of us.

That riff about the quarter-inch drill bit

Harvard marketing professor Theodore Levitt famously said, “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill bit. They want a quarter-inch hole.” The lesson is that the drill bit is merely a feature, a means to an end, but what people truly want is the hole it makes.

But that doesn’t go nearly far enough. No one wants a hole.

What people want is the shelf that will go on the wall once they drill the hole.

Actually, what they want is how they’ll feel once they see how uncluttered everything is, when they put their stuff on the shelf that went on the wall, now that there’s a quarter-inch hole.

But wait . . .

They also want the satisfaction of knowing they did it themselves.

Or perhaps the increase in status they’ll get when their spouse admires the work.

Or the peace of mind that comes from knowing that the bedroom isn’t a mess, and that it feels safe and clean.

“People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill bit. They want to feel safe and respected.” Bingo.

People don’t want what you make

They want what it will do for them. They want the way it will make them feel. And there aren’t that many feelings to choose from.

In essence, most marketers deliver the same feelings. We just do it in different ways, with different services, products, and stories. And we do it for different people in different moments.

If you can bring someone belonging, connection, peace of mind, status, or one of the other most desired emotions, you’ve done something worthwhile. The thing you sell is simply a road to achieve those emotions, and we let everyone down when we focus on the tactics, not the outcomes. Who’s it for and what’s it for are the two questions that guide all of our decisions.

Stories, connections, and experiences

The good news is that we don’t need to rely on the shiniest, latest digital media shortcut—we have even more powerful, nuanced, and timeless tools at our disposal.

We tell stories. Stories that resonate and hold up over time. Stories that are true, because we made them true with our actions and our products and our services.

We make connections. Humans are lonely, and they want to be seen and known. People want to be part of something. It’s safer that way, and often more fun.

We create experiences. Using a product, engaging with a service. Making a donation, going to a rally, calling customer service. Each of these actions is part of the story; each builds a little bit of our connection. As marketers, we can offer these experiences with intent, doing them on purpose.

The entire organization works for and with the marketer, because marketing is all of it. What we make, how we make it, who we make it for. It is the effects and the side effects, the pricing and the profit, all at once.

Market-driven: Who’s driving the bus?

Every organization—every project—is influenced by a primary driving force.

Some restaurants are chef-driven. Silicon Valley is often tech-driven. Investment firms in New York are money-driven, focused on the share price or the latest financial manipulation.

The driver, whichever one you choose, is the voice that gets heard the clearest, and the person with that voice is the one who gets to sit at the head of the table.

Often, organizations are marketing-driven. They’re slick, focused on the offer, the surface shine, the ability to squeeze out one more dollar.

I’m not really interested in helping you become marketing-driven, because it’s a dead end.

The alternative is to be market-driven—to hear the market, to listen to it, and even more important, to influence it, to bend it, to make it better.

When you’re marketing-driven, you’re focused on the latest Facebook data hacks, the design of your new logo, and your Canadian pricing model. On the other hand, when you’re market-driven, you think a lot about the hopes and dreams of your customers and their friends. You listen to their frustrations and invest in changing the culture.

Being market-driven lasts.

The myth of rational choice

Microeconomics is based on a demonstrably false assertion: “The rational agent is assumed to take account of available information, probabilities of events, and potential costs and benefits in determining preferences, and to act consistently in choosing the self-determined best choice of action,” says Wikipedia.

Of course not.

Perhaps if we average up a large enough group of people, it’s possible that in some ways, on average, we might see glimmers of this behavior. But it’s not something I’d want you to bet on.

In fact, the bet you’d be better off making is: “When in doubt, assume that people will act according to their current irrational urges, ignoring information that runs counter to their beliefs, trading long-term for short-term benefits and most of all, being influenced by the culture they identify with.” You can make two mistakes here:

Assume that the people you’re seeking to serve are well-informed, rational, independent, long-term choice makers.

Assume that everyone is like you, knows what you know, wants what you want.

I’m not rational and neither are you.