Kelford Labs Daily: Nothing to stick to
What’s your context?
When information goes ‘in one ear and out the other,’ it’s often because it doesn't have anything to stick to. — Joshua Foer in his book on memory athletes, Moonwalking with Einstein
What does your marketing stick to?
In the mind of your customer, into what context are you fitting? Into which box can they place you?
We often think originality is the goal—to say or do something no one ever has before—but what people really want is distinctiveness.
They want a new take on something they already understand. A counterpoint to a prevailing trend. An orange in a bowl of apples.
Almost nobody cared about AI until OpenAI launched ChatGPT, and suddenly people knew exactly what to do with it. It fit into so many existing contexts: When you want to Google something, when you want to know a fact, when you want to cheat on homework, etc.—the use cases were obvious and immediate.
But as some people will happily tell you, AI and Large Language Models had been around well before ChatGPT.
They just had nothing to stick to in most people’s minds.
So give the intro text of your homepage another read today, and ask yourself this:
Does my very best customer know exactly where I fit in their day-to-day life or business?
Is there a clear, obvious, and valuable use case ready for them to imagine?
Or do they have to figure it out for themselves?
And will they?
