The Birds And The Bear

Here's what buying the most advanced bird feeder on the market taught me about marketing.

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Transcript

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This is the Marketing Director Daily, and I'm Tim Parkin. I want to tell you about a bird feeder, but not just any bird feeder, a special kind of bird feeder. A bird feeder that has a camera attached to it that can record videos of any bird that visits it. It'll also give you notification on your phone so you can watch those videos. Plus, it will use AI to identify the type of bird and let you know which birds are visiting your bird feeder. I know all this because I have one of these. It's what I bought my wife this year for her birthday. And don't worry, it's what she asked for. But this bird feeder is so advanced and so cool. But I realized something really important about bird feeders. The type of bird seed you put in it matters a lot. And so at first we had a basic bird seed and it attracted the birds. Then we added some new birdseed that had some nuts in it, and that attracted the squirrels, the enemy of every bird feeder. But one night, late at night, I got a notification on my phone and a video of a different animal that came and visited the bird feeder. And this animal ate all of the birdseed and all of the nuts and almost destroyed the bird feeder. And you might be surprised to find out in Florida we have black bears. That's right, a black bear came to the bird feeder and ate everything in it. And this was an important lesson for us that what you put in the bird feeder matters a lot. And the type of bird seed you use will determine the types of animals that you get. Some animals are looking for certain things and they might not find it in your bird feeder. Other animals will eat anything that's in your bird feeder. And some just want what you've got. This is really important for all of us in marketing because you have a bird feeder. You have channels, you have distribution. Those are your bird feeders. But the type of bird seed you use are the lead magnets, the offers, the things that you put up and give to people to see if they want it. And the type of offer you make to people, the types of things you invite people to matter a lot. And just as different bird seed will attract different animals, different offers will attract different people. And it's not just changing the offer slightly. You can change how you present it, or you can change the type or the mechanism. There's lots of different ways to change your offer. But the point is to be testing and to always be figuring out which offer attracts the right people. And so for our bird feeder, we keep changing out the bird seed and we're learning how to dial it in. What's the right mix of seeds and nuts and different things to attract the birds that we want and to repel the squirrels and the bears. There's lots of ways to go about this, but it's about finding the right mix, the right recipe that attracts the people that you want to attract. And so if you're not getting enough leads, or if you're not getting enough qualified leads, the problem is either you don't have enough bird feeders or the right bird feeders, or you're using the wrong bird seed. And so it's really important to think about this and to figure out: do we have enough distribution? Do we have the right channels? Do we put our bird feeder in the right place? Where the people that we want, the animals we want to attract, will be there, we'll find it. And conversely, do you have your bird feeder in a place that it shouldn't be? Because many of you do. You know, if you're trying to run Twitter ads or Facebook ads to find enterprise qualified leads, that might not be the best idea. But if you're on LinkedIn, it's much more likely that you'll find the right people and can target them. So where you set up shop matters a lot. But more importantly, the type of bird seed you use matters as well. And you want to have the right mix. And you won't get this right on the first try. Or if you do, congrats, you're one in a million, you're lucky. But for most of us, mere mortals, we have to experiment, we have to test, we have to keep changing the composition. This means that your white paper might not be interesting to people. But maybe if you hosted a webinar and discuss the contents of that white paper, that may be more interesting and appealing to your ideal buyer. So think about what's the offer you're making right now? What does your bird seed look like right now? And how do you need to change it? What do you need to add or remove or change? Sometimes this is as easy as just rebranding it, giving it a more appealing and attractive name. You know, many of you who I've talked to call your meetings demos. Would you like to book a demo? I've said it before, I'll say it again. Nobody wants to book a demo. And so you have to rebrand this. You have to give it a name that tells me why is this interesting? Why is this different? And how is it not a sales pitch? What value will I get by booking this meeting? How can I be certain that this is not a waste of my time? So don't call it a demo. Call it something interesting, call it something useful, and actually provide value in that meeting and in that conversation. That's how you create birdseed that attracts the exact type of bird that you want. So step back and take a minute and analyze. Do we have the right bird feeder and is it in the right place? And then look at and analyze and experiment to test and figure out what is the right composition, the right mix, the right recipe for birdseed. So you can attract the animals that you want and keep the others at bay.