Actually the technique that M&S have recently been using in their marketing is a well-known marketing technique and you can use it yourself to generate more sales and for people to get the same sense of quality with you that they do when they think of M&S.
The technique is all about telling people HOW you do what you do, and when I tell my clients about this they automatically say ‘but what if people copy me’ – well the truth is let them! No one else is you and no one can produce what you produce as good as you so REALLY don’t worry about it! So WHY would you tell people how you do what you do? Think about the M&S adverts, take an apple pie as an example, they explain where they get the apples from, how long the bakers have trained for, how much care and attention goes into making the perfect pastry and even go into detail about the decoration that goes on it, just to make it pretty, and then they end by saying, you could do all that OR you could buy one from them – so what do you do? You don’t make it yourself, you buy it from them because you have been told what care and attention goes into the whole process and as if by magic that justifies them charging you loads more than the apple pie you could get from your local Aldi! The funny thing is, the process of making the apple pie is probably exactly the same as goes into the Alsi apple pie, the difference is Aldi haven’t told you about it!
Another company that is great at explaining what they do is Pret a Mange – on all their sandwich packets they tell you how they’ve made it! You COULD make it yourself with their instructions, but no, people rather pay an extortionate amount for them to do it. Innocent also use this technique to great effect and yes, Innocent are another company that on the face of it chargea huge amount for something very simple!
You to can tell people HOW you make what you do – if you are a cake maker, don’t obviously tell them about your exact recipe but tell them how much training you’ve done, how you select the good ingredients, how you have chosen the particular good quality cake tins you use, why you use a certain icing etc….
This kind of marketing REALLY does work a treat and is definitely worth doing, if you need some help formulating your own ‘How to’ story get in touch…..
Claire
