I’m a vegan and I’m not necessarily fond of hunting…but I AM a marketer…and as such, I jump at the opportunity to share brilliant marketing when I see it. This is a perfect example of knowing your customer and speaking their language. Notice anything different about these deep freezers?
Hilarious!
They display their deep freezer sizes by how many deer you can fit into the freezer. You won’t see this at Home Depot or Sears.
I’m sure this company knows that their average deer hunter customer has no idea how to convert quarts to gallons to cubic feet, etc…. I can imagine the scene:
Store clerk: “yes sir, how may I help you?”
Hunter: “yes, I’d like to buy a freezer for my deers”
Clark: “what size are you looking for?”
Hunter: “what size have you got?”
Clerk: “well, we have a 5 cu ft, a 10 cu ft and a 20 cu ft”
Hunter: [blank stare]
Clerk: “Uh hello?”
Hunter: “Uuuh, how many deer will they hold?”
You can bet this was the common theme in this store…then, the store manager, in a stroke of pure genius, decided to “speak his customer’s language” by selling these freezers in terms of how many deer they store — I love it.
This reminds me of a company named Big Ass Fans.
Can you guess what they sell?
Originally, the name of the company was HVLS Fan Company – and they provided high volume/low speed (HVLS) vertical fans – BORING! The idea came when they had clients in the warehouse to demo their fans…The common response was, “Wow, that’s a big ass fan!”
The rest is history.
Now, they are one of the top companies in their industry…in the entire country. Mainly because of their outrageous name, but it still boils down to very smart marketing and speaking their customer’s language.
Practical Marketing Tips and Application
You don’t have to go changing your name to something as outrageous as Big Ass Fans, but the lesson here to consider is: Are you speaking in terms of your customers thought process and language? avoid using a lot of technical, and a street-based jargon. Most people don’t think in this way. The initial iPod marketing was a great example of speaking in terms of their customers thinking. Instead of saying “this device has a 4 GB hard drive capacity,” they said, “You can store up to 10,000 songs.”
Do you find your customers asking for a specific thing, in a specific way — even though the name of the product or service is something completely different? Consider re-framing what you sell in the terms your customers speak in.
Sometimes you may be too close to your business to see it as a potential customer would. Allow Money Mouth Marketing to help you tap into your customer’s language – Learn More >>>