If you go in for laparoscopic surgery, you get holes in your stomach.

Four to five small incisions where a doctor will place tubes. These tubes allow her to insert her tools for work.

Then, she’ll blow up your stomach with gas to give her room to work. Lastly, she’ll place a camera in there to see what she’s working on.

After this prep work is done, she performs the surgery. It can last anywhere from thirty minutes to hours. It all depends on what needs to be done.

Once the surgery is complete, she begins to stitch up your stomach. Closing those holes properly is important. If she doesn’t close them right, you can get a hernia during recovery.

In order to close those holes properly, some doctors will use a specific tool.

That was the tool I sold.

It was used for a minute or two at the end of a surgery.

While important, the tool didn’t really take up that much of the doctor’s attention.

It was my job to make that one to two minutes seem important enough to think about using my specific tool.

The reality is, your product probably only plays a small part in something bigger.

Just like the tool I sold for the end of surgery.

If your product plays a small part, your customer will probably only give you a small piece of their attention.

As marketers, it’s good to know where we fit. Chances are, you are not the most important thing in that customers day.

We can’t market to customers like we are.

While the work we do is important, there are other important things as well.

Just like in that surgery, closing up a patient is important. But, the doctor is also concerned with removing the problem area that was the reason for the surgery in the first place.

My tool was not more important than that.

Get to the point in the first line.

That’s how you format an email in Germany.

At least, according to my friend.

Not sure how it started, but my friend and I got onto the topic of email communication differences between the Americans and the Germans.

The difference is American emails begin with pleasantries and background. Then, you get to the point and your ask at the end.

German emails require your point be in line 1.

This cultural norm, while seemingly small on the surface, might have a big impact in how we communicate.

For me, I realized this might be a key reason why my email marketing campaigns were not performing as well in the European market.

It’s the translation vs. localization debate. Even if you speak the same language.

It’s easier than ever to take your company global. Thus, we’ll run into these situations more often.

Instinctively, we know these nuances matter.

But, it’s good to remind ourselves there are differences. Large and small.

And that’s ok.

We should acknowledge them. Make the necessary changes, even if we don’t agree with the difference.

Who knows, it could be why your marketing campaign is underperforming.

Johnny Cash released Folsom Prison Blues in 1955.

It wasn’t until many years later that he managed to actually land himself in prison, if only for a night.

While Cash sang about and played in prisons, having never been, he was speaking a truth.

At the time, not entirely his own truth, but his audiences.

He was a master at it. Wearing black as a symbol for the neglected. He was the man in black.

It was his trade mark.

It’s what he sang.

He sang a truth about an audience. And, they loved him for it.

I love him for it.

The same holds true for our marketing.

Understanding our audience. Telling a story that’s their truth.

We buy stories, so tell a great story.

All you need is three chords and the truth.

If you’re not too familiar with New Coke, it’s because it was a colossal failure.

Coke began worrying about their competitors.

So much so, they changed their iconic product to be like the competition.

A reformulation of their soda to taste more like Pepsi-Cola.

It lasted 3 months.

And, to relaunch their original formula, it went through a rebrand and was introduced as “Coca-Cola Classic”.

In short, don’t be like New Coke.

Stop worrying about your competitors.

Too often, I’m in a meeting and someone asks “what is XYZ competitor doing?”

Typically, we’re talking about top of the funnel marketing activities.

This is the wrong time to be concerned about a competitor.

Sure, we want to have a pulse on the competition.

But, there is a time and a place for this.

It’s at the end of the funnel.

If we think about an attribution model, concern about competitors would be last-click attribution.

It’s when our audience begins to evaluate their last options directly before making a purchase.

It’s when we have battle cards. Competitive analysis landing pages.

Only then should you heavily discuss the competition.

Anything before that, we should be telling our own story. One that resonates with our audience.

Not trying to be like the competition.

Let’s avoid becoming New Coke.

If you have a reason to do something, it’s more likely you’ll actually do it.

Pretty obvious. So obvious, you might not even continue reading.

As it turns out, this isn’t particularly obvious to most marketers.

But, it was obvious to one.

Lester Wunderman.

Who wanted to test a theory.

The theory was, if I give my audience a reason to watch my T.V. ads, they will hear my message and purchase my product.

In a high stake’s competition, Wunderman bet the Columbia account against McCann. Test this theory, if it works, Wunderman gets the account. If it doesn’t, McCann gets the account.

Winner takes all.

This is all taking place at the height of Mad Men era advertising. Needless to say, McCann is the frontrunner in this competition.

What happened next is the Gold Box campaign.

Wunderman placed a Gold Box in his magazine advertisements requesting the reader to look for his T.V. commercial.

Giving the target audience a reason to look for the advertisement.

It was a roaring success.

He beat McCann in every test market.

It was an “omni-channel” campaign where he used one channel to give the audience a reason to engage with him on another channel.

In our next campaign, how can we be more like Wunderman and offer our audience a reason to look for us?

A thank you to Malcolm Gladwell and the Tipping Point for providing this example.