#21 | Love, Time and Death (LTD) In Business
The Agile Growth Entrepreneur Newsletter
Welcome to this week's Agile Growth Entrepreneur Newsletter
“WHAT IS YOUR WHY? Why did you get out of bed this morning? Why did you eat what you ate? Why did you wear what you wore? Why did you come here? Other than the fact that I’ll fire you and hire somebody else if you didn’t show up for work, but not that, the big WHY.
We are certainly not here to just sell %$!%, we are here to connect.
Life is about people.
Advertising is about illuminating how our products and services will improve people’s lives.
Now, how do we do that? Love, Time, Death.
These three abstractions connect every single human being on earth. Everything that we covet, everything that we fear not having, everything that we ultimately end up buying is because at the end of the day we long for love, we wish we had more time, we fear death. Love, Time, Death.
Let’s begin there.”
Howard, played by Will Smith in Collateral Beauty, gives the film’s opening speech as a successful Madison Avenue advertising executive.
Exactly why it is important to put effort into marketing and advertising
Over the course of the previous two months, I have studied dozens of profit and loss statements from different SaaS companies. Cost of goods sold (or operations, if you prefer) items like marketing and advertising were always staring me in the face, serving as a continual reminder of the connection between advertising and income.
Most advertising budgets, as opposed to the standard 5% budget, fell between 10% and 40%. This is because firms take into account a variety of aspects, including the type of product or service; price; target market and its competitiveness; goals and success measures; location; and how long the business has operated.
How much money is to be spent on advertising before a business can turn a profit varies widely. It is important to invest more in marketing when a new brand or product is being introduced to customers. It is possible that your return on investment would not be as appealing until the product or brand is well-established in the market.
When it comes to reaching customers in the global market, digital advertising has a clear advantage over more traditional forms of advertising.
Customers’ expectations of good value for money, however, remain constant. What better way to grow a business than to develop with the customer in mind, offering value to what they most cherish, Love, Time, Death.
Love
It is all love, whether you show love to the consumer or help them love others. This is why so many businesses use Mother’s Day ads to appeal to customers’ love for their mothers, or holiday ads to appeal to their love for family and friends to sell their products or services.
Different businesses might choose to:
Gamify client retention: There are a variety of industries that use games to incentivize customer loyalty and repeat purchases by providing exclusive deals and a fun experience. Customers are more likely to promote your business and increase their membership level if they are rewarded for doing so. Neuroscience has proven that the human brain is hardwired to look for things that will make it feel good.
Referral incentives are a great way to retain existing customers and attract new ones. This could be loyalty or gift cards where applicable.
Discounts or special deals just for online customers: your most loyal fans can be found in cyberspace and will gladly spread the word about your business on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Creating a unique offer for your most committed customers is a great way to encourage social sharing and gain new followers.
An easy and cheap way to express gratitude to a customer is to thank them for their patronage. Personal attention including birthday recognitions or online tags helps current clients feel special and can generate online and offline word of mouth, resulting in new customers. Being popular online is a great motivator for others to spread the word about your content.
Provide excellent customer service to show you care.
Time
It does not get old saying Time is Money. By saving a customer’s time, you are effectively saving them money. Companies can get an edge in the market and increase sales and profits by giving customers more free time to do the things they enjoy. Helping customers multitask is one easy way to improve service, as is reducing the amount of time they have to wait, as is providing assistance with tasks for which they do not have the time, and so on. It is all time saved.
These may include:
Syncing your email with your smartphone
Getting problems solved on the first try and saving clients the trouble of having to repeatedly provide the same information is central to the concept of “first contact resolution.”
Self-Service Accessibility — Putting the Power in Their Hands
Time limits on making a promotional offer.
Making Time itself a commodity by designing it into your goods and services. Apparently, a lot of African companies are selling time to their consumers without realizing it or telling them just how much money they have gained.
Death
Are you still scratching your head over how dying relates to what you sell? To truly love a product or service, you need to be able to use it to connect with people you care about and leave a lasting impression before the inevitable death.
Most people are not looking forward to dying, despite the fact that we all know it is going to happen eventually. The secret weapon of marketing and advertising is our emotions (whether we admit it or not).
We acquire things to distract ourselves from the thoughts of death because our urge to control our environment is rooted in the fear of the unknown.
Customers are influenced to spend more money on the products or services being advertised using this strategy. This is because they are trying to live their lives to the fullest in the face of their inevitable demise, even when those products have nothing to do with death.
The question is, “Why?”
It is astonishing that some business owners have not seriously considered their products’ or services’ motivations. WHY was the company or product or service created? WHY did you pick this customer demography? WHY does the customer need your product or service? Why? Why? Why?
It’s crucial for startup founders to have solid answers to these concerns, especially when trying to secure investment. Founders may better ensure their products and services are positioned to address the true, deep requirements of their target customers by focusing on the “why” behind their creations.
In a nutshell, a closer look at your business strategy may be found in these two questions:
What is your Why?
How does your product or service affect people’s lives?