[Photo by Natalie Runnerstrom on Unsplash]
The Odysseus Files, Issue 24
Playing Your Own Game, Part 2
The Need for Leadership
[Note: this is Part 2 of a miniseries within the broader Odysseus Files called “Playing Your Own Game.” These miniseries will group broad topics thematically, helping you connect the dots between them more easily.]
We left off last week describing the problems with how most digital marketers and creators approach market research. We covered customer avatars and “voice-of-customer” research and concluded that doing all this work up front (when you’re starting a new business and don’t yet have any of your own customers) isn’t worth the effort.
This week, we’re diving into an approach to market research based on the Acropolis Model.
If filling out customer avatars and collecting “voice-of-customer” research results in little actual gain, but comes at a high cost (in either money or time), what’s the alternative?
First, it’s worth stepping back and considering an idea we’ve talked about before.
That is,
when you do the same market research as everyone else,
and you follow the same data as everyone else,
and you try to give the customer what they say they want in the same way as everyone else,
you end up just looking like everyone else.
(To see this in the real world, give this article by Alex Murell a read. It cites the startling finding that, when asked what they want, people will mostly all describe the same thing. When makers, builders, and creators listen to them, it results in a whole lot of boring, lifeless sameness.)
This is how copycat brands are built. You don’t want to be a copycat brand. (In the language of our world here, of The Odysseus Files and Acropolis Publishing, this is building a village.)
Instead, true innovators - from iconic brands to impactful inventors - operate from a different place. They don’t ask people what they want, seek approval, or copy anyone else. Rather, they build based on vision.
So, how do we apply this to market research?
The Acropolis Approach to Market Research
The Acropolis approach to doing market research is based closely on the idea discussed in Issue 15. We talked about how the walls of your acropolis are how you attract attention. They are the tangible expression of your positioning and competitive advantage.
On that note, here are the steps to understanding your market:
Step 1: Start with looking at your competition. What are or aren’t they offering to your audience? What’s their focus? How are they approaching the given subject?
Chances are, especially in any sophisticated market, this will give you 80% of what you need to know about customer pain points, voice-of-customer research, etcetera.
Think about how you can do things differently, based on your strengths, brand identity, vision, and so on. This is the step where you clarify your point of view, unique mechanism, and brand message.
Step 2: Once you have a clear brand message that is based around what sets you apart from the competition, start putting that message out into the world, leveraging whatever differentiating factors you uncovered in step 1.
(And yes, this is putting the marketing before the research. It’ll all come together, I promise.)
When you’re trying to get your brand in front of as many people (within the broad category you’re operating within) as possible, settling for a tactic like social media is going to take you a very long time to test and refine.
In the world of traditional brand building, there’s a piece of old school advice: “PR builds the brand, advertising reminds people about it.”
In today’s world, this looks like borrowing other peoples’ audiences.
Build a strategy for getting in front of other peoples’ audiences. Could be guest posting, guest appearances on podcasts, cross promotions, intentional commenting on social media, getting featured in smaller media publications, etcetera.
Flood these venues with your brand message, then it’s time for the next step.
Step 3: Find out who your message attracts. This requires a clear and intentional path you guide people down: all of your messaging should direct readers/viewers/listeners towards a point where you can “sell” your brand. You’ll provide a sense of your brand personality, values, vision, etcetera.
(Note: if you’re already getting traffic from search, treat it the same way. Provide a clear path from your content for people to learn more about your brand message before offering an opportunity to sign up for your email list.)
The people who stick are your target audience. If they’re attracted to your unique message, it means the alignment is already there - you don’t have to manufacture it by trying to use their language.
As part of your path you’re guiding people down, provide an opportunity to get to know them. Some of the tactics people are seeing great results from now include:
An invitation to reply with what challenge they’re facing in your welcome email
A short survey sent to people who have recently signed up for your email list
A quiz that brings people onto your email list + allows you to learn more about them
(Here are some resources for the last two: Brennan Dunn is the email segmentation wizard. Basically, he can help you figure out how to split up new subscribers into “buckets” based on whatever factors are most important to you. Chanti Zak is the Quiz Queen, and can help you build and leverage a quiz effectively.)
Step 4: Now that you’re starting to collect real data directly from your (actual) best potential customers, you can tweak and refine your messaging, better understand their pain points, build new products to solve those pain points, etcetera.
At this stage, you can also start having one-to-one conversations with people as they join your list or even buy from you. This is where you’ll get the biggest breakthroughs in understanding your market.
As a caveat to this, the goal here isn’t to take the feedback you’re getting and apply every bit of it. Once again, the customer isn’t the leader here, you are. It’s your job to take your growing understanding of them to determine what they need to continue moving them along their path of transformation - the reason they came to you in the first place.
That transformative path is your area of expertise: you know what’s required to navigate it effectively.
So, see this process as marrying your expertise in the journey with their unique personality, insecurities, desires, etcetera.
In the end, this approach will maximize the impact you’ll be able to have on your customers’ lives, while ensuring those customers are the ones who will be most aligned with your brand.
P.S. - At various points, I’ve trialed AI for market research - ChatGPT to brainstorm pain points and Perplexity to do voice-of-customer research on forums. Especially after spending hours on the latter, I concluded that it hadn’t revealed anything I didn’t already assume about my audience.
To get more specific - and to uncover who best aligns with my brand - I’ll be applying the above method. On that note, if you’re a regular reader here and would like to talk through your challenges and obstacles to building a sustainable brand, I’d love to talk. Hit “reply” and we can set up a 20-minute call.