The holy grail of the agency world is finding a product that “sells itself.” Unfortunately, even the most amazing products in the world don’t sell themselves. The ones that are decidedly “unsexy” by comparison might prove an even more difficult challenge.
Necessary products don’t have the same appeal as sleek, well-crafted and innovative products. So how does an agency market a less-than-exciting product? Fifteen industry leaders from Forbes Agency Council give their own opinions on the methods that an agency can adopt to market even the most “unsexy” items and make them worthy of an audience’s purchase.
Photos courtesy of the individual members.
1. Make It Simple And Helpful
Those “unsexy” products and services are likely necessary and often confusing. If you can make it simple and be helpful for your audience, they’ll remember you. Answer their questions without selling. Have robust, easy-to-use troubleshooting and Q&As. – Donna Robinson, Nina Hale – Digital Marketing Agency
2. Use Clever Positioning
I love when someone creates a brand from a commodity. Cutie mandarins and Yeti coolers are two great examples of genius branders transforming the ordinary into extraordinary with clever positioning and creative execution! – Daniel O’Connell, Brand Definition
3. Showcase Uses To Intended Audience
“Unsexy” products are only unsexy if you don’t need them. If you are a business owner whose livelihood depends on an unsexy product like accounting software, well, it seems pretty darn sexy to you. The best way to get this business owner’s attention is to know more than anyone else about the unsexy product they need and show them how to make better use of it. – Jeff Bradford, the Bradford Group
4. Create A Brand Story And Personality
You need to create a brand story and personality for the firm. For example, instead of defining your accounting firm as “Boston Business Tax Accountants,” you can identify a core value or differentiating edge and use that to rebrand or recreate messaging. An example outcome could be “Boston Tax Samurais” with an entire theme related to slicing down costs and taxes through wording and imagery. – Zamir Javer, Jumpfactor
5. Get Your Timing Right
The marketer’s challenge is to be the ultimate matchmaker by discovering the audience who will find the product or service alluring. That’s where intent data comes into play. Intent data can be your marketing team’s best friend and help them create information and messages that are highly personalized and delivered to the right prospects at the right time — when they need your unsexy product. – Melissa Chang, PureB2B
6. Advertise It Through Sexy People
Most of the time, you need a certain image for people to stop scrolling through their feeds and wait to see the content. Make use of influencer marketing and roll in some good looking people to promote your services and use those pictures on your ad and email campaigns, as well. A sexy campaign can make a lot of difference in your leads campaign. – Vishal Jain, Sunshy Group Of Companies
7. Challenge The Obvious
Everyone needs “unsexy” products in their life to satisfy a need, so it’s imperative to identify an insight about the target audience that your product is uniquely able to satisfy. A compelling insight enables your product to connect with customers in a meaningful, even emotional, way. Spend the time and challenge the obvious to stand out from the competition. What could be sexier than that? – Edward Hoffman, Padilla
8. Bring Back The Soaps
Bring back the soap opera. Cliffhangers, great characters, mystery and intrigue were all used to sell soap. People are looking for brands to entertain them, especially now. – Kaaren Whitney-Vernon, Shaftesbury
9. Humanize Your Brand
Humanize your product by giving it a personality. Focus on being playful and relatable on your social media channels. Give your product a personality that is fun to engage with. Share authentic stories that let your audience experience the personality behind the brand. Your consumers will associate the emotions they feel when engaging with your content with the value they receive from your product. – Benjamin Collins, Laughing Samurai
10. Bring The Laughs
Find a common everyday life problem and offer a solution via your product in a funny way, and people will gravitate toward your product. It’s a flawless plan. Think of the best-selling toilet spray who made jokes about having to use the bathroom at your new partner’s house or in the office — everyone can relate, and they’ve sold millions of bottles. Voila! – Sophie Bowman, Brand Branding PR
11. Utilize Client Testimonials
Instead of focusing on the product or service itself, revolve your campaign around the benefits that the product or service brings to the end user. For example, utilize client testimonials. Focus on highlighting the benefits, and create clean and concise creatives and copy for your campaign. The product or service most likely solves an important problem and should be positioned in that way. – Jonathan Durante, Expandify Marketing Inc
12. Make It Unique, Compelling And Believable
Campaigns are successful if they can position a brand as unique (from competitors), compelling (tap into emotion, solve a problem) and believable (faith it will deliver). It might be through humor, empathy, pride, fear or any other human emotion, but it must check all three boxes to truly succeed. – Sara Steever, Paulsen
13. Tap Into The Behavior Of Your Audience
Certain brands scream, “Creativity, start your engine!” However, many others can’t seem to get to the starting line. When faced with the challenge of creating success for a brand that seems to lack anything to latch onto, examine the behaviors of the people that use the product and why. Then, increase the ability of new audiences to adopt those same behaviors. – Roger Hurni, Off Madison Ave
14. Understand Your Clients’ Psychology
Subjective labels like “unsexy” can be challenging to any marketer. Putting the user first and understanding their psychology can reveal the attributes of a product or service that might appeal to those users and lead to effective results. Looking outside the competition and removing those industry-specific blinders can generate a lot of creative ideas on how to bring those attributes to life. – Tripp Donnelly, REQ
15. Focus On Attainable Results
In the end, we all want to see results. When creating campaigns for “unsexy” topics, we focus on the most important result that the product or service delivers, whether it’s revenue, new customers or ROI. In our experience, results get attention. It’s that simple. – Paula Chiocchi, Outward Media, Inc.
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Author: Forbes Agency Council, Forbes Councils Member
