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We’ve all seen the ads. There’s a frustrated business leader using antiquated technology (usually spreadsheets or email). Their work is tedious and boring, and they’re missing out on tons of potential revenue until here comes a magical new product that solves all of their problems. There’s a long list of features, absolutely no pricing and finally a call-to-action (is it a demo or free trial?).
Does the ad address potential pain points and provide some clarity into what the product or service is? I guess. Does it differentiate itself? Not at all and neither have the 100 others just like it.
What that means is the ad tends to be unopinionated, lacking personality and completely boring. While traditionally that’s ok for businesses, for a number of reasons, it doesn’t work anymore.
Businesses don’t sell to businesses, they sell to people
In the world of b-to-c, you choose products based on emotions, values or what your friends like. The choices you make also reflect your values outwardly.
You probably don’t need $200 Air Jordans but they tell the world who you are. You could probably get by drinking tap water but Liquid Death is just cooler. iPhones, Teslas, Rolexes; the list goes on and on.
You could buy alternative versions of all of these products, but the connection with the brands and what they represent make the price tag worth it. So why would this be different at your workplace?
The conventional logic is that business products are vetted not by individuals, but by committees, so you don’t want to make something that won’t appeal to everyone. The flaw in this logic is that by trying to appeal to everyone, you’re likely not appealing to anyone.
As a result, you don’t have any internal evangelists and no one truly fighting to buy your product. This is why b-to-b buying processes take so long. In b-to-c, brands have strong points of view. B-to-b needs to be the same.
Products and services are the same
Between the rise of AI, automation and no-code app building, it’s become much easier to release a product into the market. Bubble.io, a no-code app-building platform, has helped create over 2.3 million apps since 2012. That’s over 200k apps per year and that’s just from one provider.
