Stop selling soap
No one cares about your soap.
No one has ever bought your (or my) soap because they “need” or “want” soap.
EVERY SINGLE PRODUCT OR SERVICE is bought because of a feeling.
It is either to escape a negative feeling.
Or to reach a positive feeling.
Example:
Advil is not about taking a pill. it is about removing the FEELING of PAIN.
Ice Cream is not about eating a bowl of food. It is the endorphins that hit the brain from creamy, sweet SUGAR. The FEELING is BLISS.
Make-up is not about putting a bunch of oil and pigments on your face. It is about FEELING BEAUTIFUL.
Perfume is not just a scented oil in a pretty jar. It is way to FEEL SEXY & ATTRACTIVE.
Even with a functional product like soap, no one uses soap because they want to use soap.
People want to
FEEL CLEAN (dignity in appearance)
FEEL ATTRACTIVE (smell good)
FEEL ACCEPTED (part of society – homeless un-showered people are not accepted in society)
FEEL CONFIDENT
FEEL COMFORTABLE (commercial soaps leave skin dry + itchy)
You get my point.
Now, here’s the thing about people (and about marketing).
We are not very honest with ourselves, or very aware of what we want.
So, if you have a direct conversation with someone about wanting to use soap so that they feel accepted by society, I am pretty sure that would be awkward and uncomfortable.
Brand marketing is SUBTLE. Especially experience marketing that is perfect for bath & body products.
Study perfume ads.
They are a PERFECT example of how an image is sold.
Same with 95% of car ads, esp for luxury cars.
No one cares what the MPG is of a Ferrari.
People care how driving a Ferrari will make them feel.
People care about how they feel.
How they feel currently.
And how they WANT to feel in the future.
The quicker you can grasp this concept, and weave your products into those feelings, the quicker you can attract people to your brand.
CAVEAT: it is MUCH easier to figure out those feelings if your target is small & well defined. This is EXTREMELY difficult to do for a broad market (e.g. Women 25-54 because they don’t all want the same feelings).
Thank you Molly! Reading your article gave me the courage to continue because I am starting and I feel a little lost. I don’t know what to do first, where to go without waiting to be next on a list, etc. I love making soaps and my passion began when I had to improve my way of taking care of myself while struggling to survive breast cancer. I realized that my skin changed due to chemotherapy and radiation and that I had to help myself. And I thought why not help others? Then, I started looking for information on how I can improve my skin through my soaps and I feel very happy to have achieved what I was looking for. Now my next step is to sell them and I get discouraged when I can’t see the way forward.