There is a myth that only the marketing department controls the brand outside your business’s four walls. Even if you are the programmer who never talks to a single client, your marketing is how the program works, feels and functions. If you are the front desk worker, your presence is marketing how you reach out to people both in person and over the phone. If you’re the boss, every policy you make markets how you feel about your employees and your company.

Knowing that marketing isn’t just one aspect handled by one small group within a company makes you examine how you can get greater returns on your marketing efforts. If you hire the best coder in the world yet the design and troubleshooting are highly lacking, how does that reflect on the company?

What about the HR person who is told to hire someone for the lowest cost? Someone can be excellent on paper, yet move the company in the wrong direction with her marketing. It’s no fault of the HR person if he was told to find the best person for the lowest cost.

If you have a customer support person who hammers out calls but lacks in personality or compassion, how does that make the customer feel? Look at zappos.com. They built an entire company around talking with people on a personal level.

When you want to focus your efforts on marketing, don’t forget to look at the other people in the company doing the marketing. Cheers.

I guess you got me on a video kick now and just can’t get enough of me. In the video below I tell a story about me and some of my past adventures.

*disclaimer: some of the information in this post could be considered illegal activity depending on your country, state or city. This is meant for entertainment purposes only and not as a guide to do anything that violates any national, state or local laws.

How’s that for a setup? I bet you’re interested now. Lets roll the tape. Also I noticed the auto gets a little fuzzy in some places. I apologize.

I’m sure by now you have figured out this post is about developing a story around your product. Doing so effectively can make a huge difference in profits and brand loyalty. Why do you think iPod does so well? Its not because iPods are the best made product on the market, actually they fail a lot. But nobody cares because of the emotion that accompanies the product. Everyone knows you are cool when you listen to an iPod.

It’s amazing how people are willing to purchase a sub-par product just because of how the story makes them feel. But I am not advocating for you to go out and develop a story around a crummy product just for the sake of selling more.

Next time you are about ready to go and launch a new product, look at the story you are about to tell and see how you can tell it a little better. Start by telling people how life was before you made your widget and how you thought there could be a better way. So you set out to find that way that could help all of humanity. In your quest to do so you developed your widget. Then out of the kindness of your heart you decided to share that widget with the rest of the world so they would not have to go through the same troubles and termoils you had to endure. Do this in about 30 seconds and you have a winner. What do we give them, Johnny? A shiny new widget for $19.95.

Now see, that wasn’t so hard.

Tell me about products you have purchased that totally sucked but came with a good story…

If you were interested in the knife I was talking about you can find it here for $36. The brand name of the knife was Min Sheng. Not all countries allow such things, so make sure to double check before ordering.

This is a guest post by Lindsay who maintains the dog blog That Mutt. She writes about dog training and behavior, dog products and dog rescue. She also just so happens to be my girlfriend.

If you’d like to guest post on my blog feel free to visit my guest post page and learn more.

The first step to a good marketing idea is having a product or service people actually need. When it comes to marketing, some products are much easier to promote than others. No matter how good the marketing is, some products just don’t reach people.

Novelty items and products that solve a problem are the easiest to market. If something isn’t selling, your job is to convince people that they can’t live without your product. If this isn’t true, then make adjustments to your product.

The way I see it, products and services fit into three categories: 1) Functional products that sell, 2) Novelty products that sell and 3) Ideas that don’t sell.

Since I work with dogs, it’s easy for me to use the pet industry as an example.

Products that solve a problem

In my community of Fargo, N.D., there are about a dozen dog boarding and dog daycare places. As far as I know, none of them offer dog walking.

Because I know there will always be dogs that need more exercise, I opened a dog running and dog walking business last year. There wasn’t a need for just another dog daycare. There was a need for something different. This is a functional service people need.

There are tons of pet products out there that function and sell because they solve a problem or meet a need. One product that solves a problem is the retractable dog leash.

Problem: Lazy, overweight Americans don’t want to exercise their dogs.

Solution: The retractable leash allows the human to simply stand there while the dog runs circles around them.

I hate these leashes, but they are exactly what people want. I don’t think I need to say more.

Another product that solves a problem is the hands free bike leash.

Problem: The human takes her hyperactive dog biking while holding the leash. The dog sees a squirrel, lunges and causes the human to lose control of her bike and crash. Hopefully no stitches are needed.

Solution: A hands free bike leash works by securing the dog to the side of the bike and allowing the owner to keep both hands on the bike and remain in control. My mutt Ace and I use our hand free bike leash almost every day because it allows me to safely exercise my high-energy dog.

And finally, a third example is the automatic pet feeder.

Problem: Food-obsessed cat demands food at all hours of the day. The owner gets very annoyed. (Josh here: That’s my cat she’s talking about! Now back to the post …)

Solution: The pet feeder is programmed to drop the right amount of food at the right times throughout the day. The cat learns to go to the feeder and wait for food rather than harass his owner.

The automatic pet feeder has saved Josh and I a lot of stress!

Novelty products

Novelty products don’t solve a problem, but they sell anyway because people believe they can’t live without them. These are products like Bobblehead dolls or Halloween costumes for dogs.

Novelty items don’t have much value other than people want them because someone else has them. For example, someone might buy a Halloween costume for her dog to impress her friends. Or someone might start collecting bejeweled dog collars just so her dog can have more ways to dress up than other dogs.

People become strangely attached to products like these and start obsessing and creating emotional attachments. Think Beanie Babies or trolls. Creepy, right?

Ideas that don’t sell

Products and services that don’t sell are not necessarily bad. It’s just that something about that product or the marketing of that product needs to change. The product or service should meet a need or become a novelty people can’t live without. (Josh here: can anyone say SkyMall Magazines on airplanes? A whole magazine of worthless stuff you don’t need but want.)

We’ve probably all had ideas that don’t catch on. For example, I offer a service where I will take dogs to a dog park for off-leash exercise. No one seems interested in this service, but dozens of people are interested in my on-leash dog running service.

Perhaps taking the dog to the dog park is easier for people so they prefer to do it on their own. That means I need to change my marketing approach.

I could convince people about the importance of dogs socializing with other dogs and getting time to run free and just be dogs. I could explain to people how the dog park is mentally stimulating for dogs and therefore they come home tired. Hyperactive dogs create many problems. My job is to offer solutions.

The pet industry is just one piece of the pie, but the same rules can be applied with any industry. People buy products and services either because they believe they can’t live without them or because they solve a problem.

When you are marketing your brand, service or product, think about how it fits into this equation and how you can make improvements to change how that product is viewed. If you are meeting a need, the sales will follow.

Why can’t people live without your product?