[Reading Record -22] Selling Ice to Eskimos
I like books where scholars dig incredibly deep into a theme based on research, but I also enjoy books that interestingly document methods discovered through trial and error. They are persuasive, after all.
"Selling Ice to Eskimos"
The author, Jon Spoelstra, is a practitioner who served as a management and marketing executive for teams like the NBA's Dallas Mavericks. He is known for dramatically improving attendance and revenue for struggling professional sports teams, and is highly regarded as a marketer who achieved results in the field rather than relying on desk-bound theories.
Do not look for the reason it won't sellin the market or the product.
You should fundamentally rethink the way of selling itself.
What is important is context (meaning, background, and setting).
If you thoroughly break down "to whom," "what," and "in what context" you are delivering, you can give a product new meaning even in places where it was thought there was no demand.
What Spoelstra advocates is the concept of "Jump Start Marketing."
It is a method of accumulating immediate, effective measures to achieve results in a short period without relying on large-scale advertising investments or long-term strategies. In this book, this is depicted using his experience when he boosted the attendance of the New Jersey Nets, a weak NBA team, as an example.
Instead of dividing the market into segments like "age," "gender," or "income," he viewed "each individual customer" as the smallest unit, prioritizing the design of experiences that would surely resonate with specific individuals over creating messages that would appeal to the masses. As a result, he was able to boost overall performance.
This is not about special IT technology or advanced data analysis.
What is important is the attitude of carefully observing customer behavior and reactions, and thinking individually about "why this person came" or "why they stopped coming." Instead of large-scale surveys or long-term measures, and instead of treating customers as an average value, focus on how to move "the one person right in front of you." That accumulation led to short-term sales recovery and increased attendance.
The moment you sincerely empathize with the circumstances and motives of just one customer, the product changes from something "to be sold" to something "to be chosen." Marketing is not about efficiency, but about building relationships.
That is the concept of "Segment of One."
It is a thinking technique that asks: How do you sell an unattractive product?
1. Don't change the product, change the "meaning"
You cannot make an unattractive product look attractive.
Therefore, instead of trying to force the appeal of that product, let's redesign the context of that product.
・Change the usage
・Limit the usage scenarios
・Shift the comparison target
2. Abandon the masses and face "one person"
If you try to sell an unattractive product to an average customer, you will always fail.
・Who is the "one person" who needs this product?
・Why does that person need it now?
…Let's get specific down to that point.
Even if you are ignored by 100,000 people, if you deeply resonate with 100 people, marketing is successful.
3. Don't appeal to features, "remove obstacles"
People don't "not buy because they don't want it."
They don't buy because it's a hassle, they're anxious, they're embarrassed, or they don't have time.
・Anxiety about price
・The effort to go there
・Stress of choosing
…Let's eliminate these.
The less attractive a product is, the more effective it is to eliminate the "reasons not to buy" one by one.
4. Try small, fix fast
You don't need flashy campaigns.
Propose it to one person, ask for the reason if they refuse, and fix it the next day.
Repeat this.
The appeal of a product is not something that exists from the beginning.
The appeal of a product is something that is generated later through the back-and-forth interaction with the customer.
The way to sell an unattractive product is not to "talk about it well." It is to deeply enter the reality of one customer, redesign the context (meaning, background, and setting), and remove obstacles.