The product you create is the output of the purpose that you hold.
Let me explain my view here.
Whatever your craft may be, there’s a reason why you’re building what you’re building.
To solve a problem, to optimise your skill, to serve a cause, to do better.
There’s a purpose behind what you and your team do.
That purpose represents a valuable opportunity to connect with your audience in a way no other business can. Let’s embrace it.
The purpose of business purpose
We talked about purpose in last week’s Marketing Homebrew (Show 70).
Of course, purpose is central to your business, not simply your marketing. Your purpose is the reason you build your product, the reason your business exists, the reason your staff get out of bed in the morning and head to the office.
For some businesses, the purpose is clear. It’s embedded into the message they present. It’s embodied within the business they run. Take Patagonia:
Sometimes we talk about the ‘dreams’ and ‘ambitions’ of founders. For Patagonia, everything they do is in the real. There’s no grey. Read Patagonia’s founder Yvon Chouinard’s book Let My People Go Surfing to understand how purpose builds business.
Watch how he responded to a comparison to Steve Jobs that most of us would feel flattered to hear:
Knowing the purpose of your business
Don’t assume purposeful = environmental. Yes, it’s a factor that many of your audience can, and will, associate with. Hiut Denim position their purpose upon the development of their hometown economy. To return specialist craftspeople back to the tools of their trade:
You’re not simply buying a pair of jeans when you buy Hiut Denim. You’re investing in the small town of Cardigan, Wales
You make your product for a reason. You’ve chosen a unique blend of materials, built a new software platform for a particular market or developed a new prototype because the knowledge of your audience’s own needs leads your decision making. Why hide that reason from your audience? Embrace the process that defines your purpose.
Patagonia’s product range isn’t a by-product of their purpose. Their customers don’t purchase simply to invest in Patagonia’s purpose. Patagonia produce damn fine products. Products made for a particular use because the people that make the product are their own customers. Yvon tells us that Patagonia are a product-driven company. The Patagonia mission statement leads, first and foremost, with “building the best product“.
You can’t overlook the premise of business purpose. If the first thing that springs to mind is ‘growth’ or ‘money’ what’s the fuel to propel growth? Investing more profits into Adwords to reach more customers? Or building a product so good that people can’t help but share their satisfaction with likeminded friends (i.e. potential new customers)?
Why is your product so good? Is there a unique difference from what else is already available? What problem does your product solve greater than anything else on the market? How does that solution make your customer feel? Safe? Successful? Unique? Empowered?
Once you start to consider these questions you start to have a better understanding of your purpose.
Purpose to meet an individual’s requirement
McNair demonstrate 18 points that you may not realise at first glance about their merino shirts.
Point 12. Choose the standard length for an everyday fit, or choose the long length for snowsports so that your gloves are partially covered and your posterior stays warm.
Product innovation fit for a particular purpose. Snowboarding? you don’t want snow finding it’s way into your glove through the gap between the glove and shirt. Choose the long length variant.
Your purpose, can oftentimes, be the way you frame the features of your product to suit a particular person’s lifestyle. £335 for a shirt? You’re buying the best merino shirt in the world. McNair prove it.
If your purpose is to put the best product into the hands of your customer it means nothing unless you demonstration the process you follow. That process empowers belief. It adds meaning. As Ty Montague puts it,
“In a world of abundance, what your product does for your customers is important, but not nearly as important as what your product means to them.”
The intrinsic nature of purpose
When you stand for something it adds meaning to what you do. It adds value as you way up the consequence of the time you trade ‘working’ on your product against other things you could be doing.
Purpose makes a lot of what we do feel worthwhile.
Without purpose, you’re just fulfilling a job. There’s better things you can be doing than just the doing.
When your purpose matters to you the role of your marketing is to make your purpose matter to them (your audience, your customers).
Your purpose as a marketing tool
Understanding the purpose behind what you do allows your potential customer to gain a perspective on what you believe in. It adds that much discussed, but rarely actioned, ingredient of authenticity.
Perspective is one of the 3 key differentiators (alongside people and process) of your product and of your business. It’s something, that when shared correctly, hooks the interest of your reader, your listener, your viewer. It’s something that’s difficult to copy (or fake).
If you’re struggling to increase email newsletter registrations consider the way you’re touting signups. Are you asking people to subscribe or are you inviting people to follow the pursuit of your purpose? To learn more about how you’re fixing problems you encounter (on behalf of your audience)?
No business that makes things should ever find creating content a struggle. Ever.
Find your voice. What’s going on right now within your business? What’s the version 1.1 you’re working on right now? Why does it matter?
The purposeful business is already thinking about version 1.1. Whatever that may be, whatever they may yield.
The importance of purpose to your marketing efforts
In our weekly podcast we’ve set out a 48-week schedule for 2016. The first of which was our discussion on Purpose. Without purpose you’re facing an uphill struggle to build your online business. To sell what you create at the price you deserve.
- Purpose adds clarity to the value your product provides.
- Purpose adds focus to the marketing that you create.
What’s your business purpose?
Written By:
