
The Sam-I-Am Guide to Marketing: How Dr. Seuss Got it Wrong

- "I will not eat them in the rain. I will not eat them on a train. Not in the dark! Not in a tree! Not in a car! You let me be!" Sound familiar? Read on.
The terms branding and marketing are sometimes used interchangeably. This is understandable — they…
Just like a person, your company’s brand has a unique personality, and how people…
The terms branding and marketing are sometimes used interchangeably. This is understandable — they…
So, you've got a brand new logo! High five! Now, you start to notice that some other logos have ™ or ®, and you…
On occasion, after designing a logo, I have people ask if they need to trademark it, and if I can do it for them.…
So, you've got a brand new logo! High five! Now, you start to notice that some other logos have ™ or ®, and you…
In 10+ years of developing websites, I’ve come across a lot of assumptions. And you…
These days, it seems everybody “does web design”. How do you know the best option…
These days, it seems everybody “does web design”. How do you know the best option…
Can something as basic as design affect customers’ perception of your product? Yep, it can and it does. How, you ask? Take a peek behind…
Business cards are, without a doubt, the most common marketing piece there is. But that doesn't mean it has to look common! Read on for…
Can something as basic as design affect customers’ perception of your product? Yep, it can and it does. How, you ask? Take a peek behind…
“I do not like them in a box.
I do not like them with a fox.
I will not eat them in a house.
I do not like them with a mouse.
I do not like them here or there.
I do not like them ANYWHERE!
I do not like green eggs and ham!
I do not like them, Sam-I-Am.”
For those who have forgotten their childhood, Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham follows the journey of Sam-I-Am and the poor unwitting victim who is being pressured by Sam to eat green eggs and ham. Now, I realize this is a children’s book, but just for fun, let’s look at it through our marketing lens.
Sam-I-Am ultimately succeeded. But it took 53 (FIFTY-THREE!) pages for him to do so. Oh, Sam. If only Sam would have followed some tried-and-true marketing basics. We could’ve gotten through the story in half the pages.
Sam-I-Am was persistent, plain and simple. He won by being a pest. He won because his target wanted to get rid of him. I do not condone the methods of Sam-I-Am. In fact, if you insist on calling me at dinnertime every single night to sell me the same timeshare I said no to the night before, your persistence will only backfire. So Sam-I-Am was lucky because he’s just a character in a kid’s book that gets a happy ending. In the real world, Sam would not be nearly as successful.
Here’s the problem Sam-I-Am had that many business owners share: He knew he had a good product, but that the consumer would not immediately recognize that.
So, he understood the consumer’s “no” as an automatic reflex to the constant inundation of asks and as a hesitation to try something different, not necessarily as a denouncement of the value of his product. Sam believed that with the right information, the consumer could realize what he knew to be true – that the product was fantastic and would enhance his life! If you’re a business owner, you probably share Sam’s conundrum.
You may do what Sam did and try a few different angles to break through. (In a boat or with a mouse? No? How about in a tree?) There’s nothing wrong with that, and in fact, a bit of trial and error is necessary when doing things like conversion optimization or testing different messages.
Here’s what Sam did that was bad, though, and I can’t stress this enough: He didn’t take “no” for “no.” No means no. In marketing, if someone says “please unsubscribe me” it means “please unsubscribe me” – don’t ignore their request to never hear from you again. (That makes you Spam-I-Am. Don’t be Spam-I-Am.) So what this means is you want to position your offerings in a light that doesn’t automatically trigger a no. In these days of constant overstimulation and marketing messages every which way you turn, that’s difficult to accomplish. How do you get a “yes” instead of an automatic no?
Well, the first and most obvious thing is to talk only to those who want to listen to you. That means you really have to know who your target market is.
Beyond that, here are some ways that Sam could have improved his campaign, and some tips that you should consider when marketing your product or service to an audience that is either reflexively tuned to say “no” or is difficult to break through to:
Like a bribe, Nyla? Yes, like a bribe. But let’s call it an incentive. The classic WIFM (what’s in it for me).
In general, people like to come to decisions on their own, without feeling pressured or manipulated. So focus on giving information that the consumer needs to make a decision instead of pressuring them too soon to make a decision that they don’t feel comfortable making.
I could go on. There are a lot of good practices to use in your marketing strategy. The point is, if you EVER see yourself being a Sam-I-Am, take a step back and re-evaluate your tactics. Marketing sometimes gets a bad rap, lumped together with deceptive advertisers, sleazy salespeople, and annoying telemarketers. But at its core, marketing is simply making sure the right people are aware of your offering and the value it brings to them. There’s nothing wrong with that, when you do it the right way.
Cognitive biases. We all have them. We may even be aware of them. Cognitive biases are the result of mental shortcuts our brains have formed, particularly when making decisions… and marketers, intentionally or not, have been banking on them since the dawn of advertising.
In this high-tech age, something as simple as an email signature should be a breeze to create on your computer. Think again! Although all email clients support these signatures, each interprets it differently. This causes the HTML email signature to be one of the most unpredictable beasts in the digital world.
So often, when working on websites or landing pages, the client adamantly states, “We need to get all that above the fold.” I’m always curious if they’re saying it because they’ve heard it was an unbreakable rule, or if they have specific data to support their request. It’s important to know that “above the fold” alone is not a magic bullet for a successful page.