Those of you who know me and are familiar with my role and responsibilities as “Principal of Practicality” at Insight180 will chuckle at how NOT surprising it is I would coin the phrase or espouse the concept of “Practicality Marketing.” (Well, some things should be predictable in life, shouldn’t they?)
So, let me explain what I mean. These days, there’s a lot of evidence to support the importance of writing blog posts and white papers to demonstrate your thought leadership and high level of expertise to your prospects. We advise it all the time and we’ve seen the benefits first hand with our own advisory firm clients who’ve adopted the practice as a successful marketing strategy. For many firms, it has catapulted them to significantly higher levels of business. But there are right and wrong ways to go about it and how well or poorly you do it makes all the difference.
All too often, such content is written to demonstrate how smart a firm is, how much “better” their expertise level is, how much “more” they offer the prospect. And these things might actually be true, but coming right out and saying so can make people’s eyes glaze over and create skepticism.
The best way to communicate such messages is to focus on your ability to provide practical answers to clients’ common problems and quantify their success in some way. I like to call it “Practicality Marketing.” What was the practical, bottom-line result of what you were able to do for your customers? How do they benefit? What do you help them achieve? (And just as important, what would THEY say you help them achieve?)
“Practicality Marketing” is a way of looking at, and framing what you offer in a way that is more customer-focused and relatable. Marketing from a practicality perspective forces you to think in terms of what prospects want from you and how you can help them instead of what you want to brag about. Don’t get me wrong. Bragging has its place. Marketing is all about telling the world how great you are. It just comes off better when your clients’ successes do the talking for you.
— Chris Quinn, principal and brand strategist
