Most of us could name the 5 P’s of marketing. But it turns out there are more than you think and we all name different ones.

Product

Pricing

Promotion

Positioning

Publicity

Packaging

Pass Along

Permission

Only we all missed one.

P for Purple Cow. Purple Cow stands for remarkable. Only remarkable starts with a R. So now we have P for purple cow, which is also remarkable.

Marketing doesn’t work anymore because we now all have what we need. So we have stopped listening to non remarkable advertising for non remarkable products. 

The idea of how products and ideas spread follows a bell shaped curve  

So how do you spread your idea or product?

First you need people who need your product, for example a pain reliever. Then find people who want to buy a new version, your version of a pain reliever. Now they have to listen to why yours is better (most will ignore you, as they are too busy, no matter how hard you try)

Being first to market is a great strategy. Now most convenient slots are taken. Most of the simple, convenient ways of doing things are done. 

There is no point writing a book about yoga.

Most people can’t buy your product. Either they don’t have the money, they don’t have the time or they don’t want to.

If an audience doesn’t have the money to buy what you’re selling at the price you need to sell it for, you don’t have a market.

If an audience doesn’t have the time to listen and understand your pitch, you’ll be treated as if you were invisible.

And if an audience takes the time to hear your pitch but decides they don’t want it..well you are stuck.

Bottom line.

• All the obvious targets are gone, so people aren’t likely to have an easily solved problem
• Consumers are hard to reach because they ignore you
• Satisfied customers are less likely to tell their friends

When working with early and late majority

IF your product gets this far; often it doesn’t

The early and late majority want the tried and tested. Polished and fool proof. 

Product development in the early stages of a product cycle are critical to the product entering the majority phase. 

Investment, time and reiteration are key skills to getting a product to the majority. 

The TV-industrial complex: Circular argument

Buy ADs – Get MORE distribution – Sell MORE product – Make a Profit – Buy more AD’s

Create safe, ordinary products and combine them with great marketing.

Is now replaced by

Create remarkable products that the right people seek out

The value is now not how many people you can reach, it is who you reach.

The early adopters and innovators who spread the word; sneezers.

Following the leader is not easy

The thing the leader did to be remarkable is no longer remarkable.

Creating a purple cow

Change your users’ behaviour.

Instead of trying to use your technology and expertise to make a better product for your users’ standard behaviour, experiment with inviting the users to change their behaviour to make a product work dramatically better.

What do you want your customer to do?

What behaviour change do you seek?

When it is not working 

Switch. Take your profits and reinvest them in building something new

Ideas that spread;ideavirus

Pick a niche and attempt to dominate the marketplace. 

How easy is it to spread your idea?

How often will people tell others?

How tightly knit are the group?

Do they trust each other?

Do they believe in each other?

How reputable are the people who are most likely to promote your idea?

How persistent is it? A Fad or an investable future?

Who is listening?

Promote when your customers are actually looking for help. In a place where they will find you. 

Real win occurs when the person who’s listening is a sneezer and is likely to tell friends and colleagues.

Being remarkable is helpful.

Developing products that the market seek out…winning.

Not all customers are the same;

Differentiate your customers. Find the group that’s most profitable. Find the group most likely to sneeze. Figure out how to reward/develop/advertise this group.Ignore the rest. 80:20 

Could you run 3 different products and begin to separate them out Cheap, Middle, Expensive?

Pick your niche

If you could pick one underserved niche to target what would it be? 

How to pick a niche….

• Look at similar industries and find services and products that work 
• Check competitors and go sideways or beat them on 5P’s

Being FEARLESS

The fear of being remarkable. The alternative is to place it safe. 

Are you making very good stuff? How fast can you stop?

Fitting in is failing..

If you measure it, it will improve.

What could you measure? What would that cost? How fast could you get the results?

If you can afford it, try it. 

If you have a purple cow

• Milk the cow for everything it is worth. Figure out how to extend it and profit from it for as long as possible
• Create an environment where you are likely to invent a new purple cow in time to replace the first one when its benefits inevitably trail off. 

Do you have the email address of the 20 percent of your customer base that love what you do? If not start getting them. If you do, what could you make for these customers that would be super special?

How could you modify your product or service so that you’d show up on the next episode of Saturday Night Live?

Can you redefine what you sell?

Could you make a collectible version of your product?

Could you leave your product alone and come back to it with an amazing refresh?

Otaku describes something that’s more than a hobby but a little less than an obsession.

How could you create an audience that is weird and wacky about your product?

Do you have a slogan or positioning statement or a remarkable boast that’s actually true. 

Is it consistent. Is it worth passing on?

4 steps to working with Sneezers

More often than not, ideaviruses start when the early adopters are dissatisfied with some element of the experience. Pleasing customers doesn’t always lead to conversations. Delighting them, enraging them, hospitalizing them or surprising them–that’s how sneezers are born.

• Get permission; To alert them the next time you have a cow.

The opposite of spam. 

• Work with sneezers to make it easier for them to help your idea cross the chasm. Give them tools (and the story) they’ll need to sell your idea to a wider audience

• Once you’ve crossed the line from remarkable to profitable business let a different team milk it. 

Productize your service

Servicise your products

Let a thousand variations bloom

Work hard and fast

Don’t believe the hype

• Reinvest. DO it again. 

Creating ideas

Make a list of all the remarkable products in your industry. Who made them? How did they happen? Model the behaviour (not mimic the product).

Immerse yourself in fan magazines, trade shows, design reviews. Whatever it takes to feel what your fans feel.

Being public; often failing in public

Testing ideas:

Very public releases of cheap prototypes.

Move fast.

Be outrageous:

Good way to learn to feel like to be at the edge.

Combine Customer Service with Showmanship.

Instead of selling what you want to sell.

Sell what people want you to sell.

Then figure out how to make money doing it

Often the harder path. Creating a remarkable experience for your customer.

Options;

• That’s what I would want my service to do for me
• Get inside the head of people who do care about the product you are working on
• Or relentlessly test; what is working and what is not. 

The problem with cheap

Pricing is a strategic move. At least it should be. Otherwise it is a desperate lunge or a lazy way out.

Ikea have defined quality and are cheap. The bigger they get the better they should become as they drive costs with volume. Creating a barrier to entry.

If you could build a competitor that had costs that were 30% lower than yours, could you do it? If you could, why don’t you?

Key Elements of the Purple Cow

Potential Ideavirus.

Solves a problem.

Design a product to solve it; Is it remarkable?

Audience.

Permission.

Sneezers.