We use the term “bubble” a lot nowadays. For example, people talk about their social media bubble. ie that they hear opinions that only coincide with what they prefer to read). You can be in your social bubble, meeting only people who are like yourself. Also, there is a bubble around our work. Life in a business is about spending most of your time with other people in that business. Over time you become a mini tribe sharing codes, customers, culture….and language.
For marketing, this creates a unique challenge. The task of marketing, by definition, is to reach out into the world of customers. To garner their interest in your business. That means reaching outside your bubble. Getting into theirs. Marketing communication gets that task.
But here is the risk. The language and ideas you use to communicate with each other inside your bubble may work well there. Everyone is already on the same page and knows a large part of what you are talking about. But there is a high likelihood that your marketing message will be in the language of your bubble. And you won’t even notice, so familiar are you with it. Particularly since that language makes so much sense to you.
This includes things like jargon. More importantly, it means things you feel you don’t have to explain because they are so obvious. But these could be crucial to engaging a prospect. How often do you land on a B2B website and leave none the wiser about what they actually do? It’s the bubble at work.
Bubbles are more and more dangerous the smaller they are. Fewer people mean even less diversity of experience and perspective. So, for small companies, this bubble problem, conversely, is bigger. Large firms can reduce the risk by using agencies with many staff working across various clients to get “outside” points of view. But if you are marketing your business on your own (as many founders and startups do) then this is a huge watch out.
The cost of this can be huge. Marketing activities from your desk that had prospects scratching their heads. You can’t know. That’s the problem. You love your marketing work. Of course, you do. But it’s not aimed at you, is it?
The solution is to reach outside your bubble to get that crucial objective second opinion.
Roger Jackson
CEO of ShopperIntelligence
Founder of SenseCheck
