There may be few certainties in life, but when it comes to the marketing world, there are several hard facts that account for why it is really, really tough to go from being a small business to a large one.
Some of these issues are simply a byproduct of how our economy works, while others have much more to do with human behavioural psychology and the mysterious way our brains sometimes operate.
Over my career, I’ve worked for some very big companies. I’ve also started my own somewhat smaller company, so I’ve experienced these marketing laws from both sides of the fence. So, what holds smaller companies back, and how can you “hack” the system if you’re a small company looking to get bigger?
The familiarity problem
The first and most fundamental barrier for small companies is the human brain. We are programmed to pay attention to the familiar, essentially priming us to only notice things that we already know about. People out shopping just don’t “see” unfamiliar brands in the same way they notice the big brands, even when right in front of them. In this way, marketing from those larger brands works much more effectively than those from more obscure brands.
I experienced this firsthand at a conference we sponsored. Our logo was plastered in front of delegates all day, but when I asked an attendee over coffee if he’d ever heard of us, I received a rather blank “no”.
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