Isn't it funny that people think a marketer's job is to create demand for something?
But like any serial entrepreneur will tell you – you can create the best product in the world, and end up not selling a single unit if there's no demand.
The #1 thing you want if you open a coffee shop...
Is a starving crowd – who wants coffee!
You don't want to have to convince people that they need your product. You don't want to be begging them to buy. Marketing is easy when you've got a product that people want.
When I worked with MobileAds.com (no longer active), man, it was tough getting customers. We did everything – paid ads, events, SEO, content marketing, lead magnets, knock on doors, etc.
It was so hard.
The business was an interactive ad platform. Interactive ads are ads that you can interact with, directly on the ad. You could play a game, enter a lead, etc. Back then, interactive ads were something only huge brands could afford. The cost of developing an interactive ad was crazy.
So the idea for MobileAds was to create a self-serve platform that small businesses could use, and create their interactive ads. We were enabling interactive ads for small businesses! Yay!
But the crowd wasn't hungry.
There was no demand.
Most small-medium businesses are so bootstrapped, that they don't want to spend extra money for an interactive ad – even if the ad gave them a brand lift. They rather stick to static banners and video ads on Facebook and Google.
In the end, we couldn't scale even when we had a great product, because there was no hungry market.
Question for you today. Are you serving a hungry market?
140+ marketers at Underdog E-Commerce Con
Underdog E-Commerce Con is this Thursday. That's 2 days away!
Simon Sinek says people don't buy what you do. They buy why you do it.
Our why for Underdog Con is simple. The first time we ran Underdog in 2022, people kept asking us when we'd run it again. They've gotten value, built connections, and struck business deals from the event.
That's why we organize it – to create opportunities for everyone (us included). See you this Thursday.
