Usually, at the formation of a company, you write up a mission statement and identify your brand values. It’s a good idea to also reexamine these from time to time to see if anything has shifted in light of major events, like operating in a pandemic or the mainstream discourse on Black Lives Matter.
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Imagine that you had a friend who kept poking you with a stick. With every poke, a mark was left on your skin. Sometimes the mark disappears and other times, it remains present and scarred over. You tell them to stop. You ask why they’re poking. You say it hurts.
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There’s a weird partnership between perfectionism and marketing. You spend too much time thinking about how a campaign can go poorly and you miss an opportunity. But if you don’t think about enough, you might end up trending on Twitter in a bad way. How do you craft a plan that feels good but also stops you from becoming a nitpicking monster?
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It’s rough times. And the service industry is getting hit so hard. Marketing during a crisis always feels a little…off. Some business emails have looked more like virtue signaling. Like, bare minimum, I hope you’re treating your employees well.
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I’ve been grappling with the idea of “grace” lately. And not the religious or spiritual kind. As you might know, I moved to a new place three weeks ago. Since moving here, I’ve already gone on two trips. But to me, it feels like I’ve been here forever and why haven’t I already organized everything and put decor on the walls? If it was any other person, I’d tell them to take their time but since it’s me, I feel like I’m lacking that same patience and grace.
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“Read the room” is a common phrase when talking about analyzing an audience while you’re the speaker. In case you’re unfamiliar with the phrase, you take into account nonverbal and verbal cues from the people you’re around and adjust your words accordingly. A good example of this would be that if you’re at a posh dinner party, avoiding sharing intimate details about your life (unless, of course, that’s the topic- and that’s where you’d “read the room” to adjust your words).
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In Part 1, I wrote about how to use your internal jealousy to pinpoint where you want your goals to be and determine what you want to do in life and business. For this post, I want to examine it from a marketing perspective where you use jealousy to subtly encourage sales and drive FOMO (fear of missing out) among your customers.
Unless you’re a marketer, you’ve probably not thought about marketing psychology tactics. Many times, in social media, you are not advertising once and converting that customer on a sale. In general marketing principles, the average consumer needs to see an ad seven times before committing to a purchase. And this number jumps even more if you have luxury goods. It is important to note that the stat was established before social media came about. So it’s very possible that your ad could be shown an average of three times before conversion.
Ways that businesses harness jealousy among consumers include: limited edition products (a special color or style), flash sales, and creating an in-group of influencers. We often want the lifestyle that someone else has, even if we are aware that it’s a facade. I highly doubt that any influencer out there lives the life that is shown on their Instagram feed. We all have to run errands and deal with friendship crises. But the unglamorous parts of life is not what sells. The best kind of influencer is the one that makes you think that you, too, could live their life if only you had the products. It doesn’t matter if you actually can, it only matters if you could.
So, to execute some of what I mentioned, here are some ideas for you try out for your coffee company. Each of these are doable throughout the year. Many of these ideas also hinge on the hope that customers will post about them on social media and brag in a way that will cause other potential customers to be jealous.
Even if you’re not a manufacturer, swag is included here as a limited edition product. You can take an existing swag product that you already offer and release a new design on it by working with an illustrator. Turn it into a series with different illustrators and it becomes a collectible item. Or, change up colors and release them in limited quantities.
Everyone loves a sale and a flash one really drives up the need to buy right now. Mark the discount or sale as even higher than you normally would for a sale and then limit the sale. This can be limited in two ways: number of uses or time.
Number of uses
Time: Many of these depend on your reach. So if your social media presence is small and/or your audience isn’t very engaged, then you may need to extend the flash deal time.
This now gets into more influencer marketing territory. To execute this, you need to cultivate a group of influencers that you can send products to ahead of a launch. They then post about it and you have people driving buzz before the product is available. This creates a sense of jealousy among your customers.
Alternatively, you can time their posts with the same day as your product launch so your digital share of voice is high that day. To make the product even more desirable, turn it into a limited edition item.
I hope some of these ideas help create new marketing campaigns for you! The holidays are a great time to test some of these out.
Failure is a part of doing business. After a certain amount of time operating, you’re bound to fail and that’s okay. Failure can also be used as a learning experience. Earlier this year, I asked my followers if any would be interested in talking to me about their coffee marketing failures – big or small. I was curious to know if people jumped on marketing trends or invested too heavily in a new product. This Q&A series is titled “Coffee marketing failures and their lessons.”
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I went to an event at Red Bay Coffee recently. It was titled “The Impact of Coffee Crisis on Communities & the Border Crisis.” It was targeted to consumers and ultimately, both illuminating and thought provoking to me. Attendance was 50/50 in consumers and industry professionals.
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Seven years is a long time to do any one thing. Yet here I am, seven years later, still self-employed and still focused on specialty coffee. My services have naturally evolved through the years and it’s been an interesting journey through it all.
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I'm a San Francisco-based coffee marketer: digital strategist, writer & photographer. On the side, I munch on donuts & think of new ways to make you look stunning online.
You can reach me here or on Twitter.
Life goal:
eat / drink coffee / write / travel
>>>> all in one.
