Bust the barriers to customer acquisition. Let’s say that you’re having a hard time getting new customers for your lemonade stand, Revive Lemonade, with the benefit of “the superior taste of freshly squeezed lemons”. To solve this, do some research to determine why people are not buying even after learning about your benefit of the superior taste. And remember to never include “lack of awareness” as a reason. Gather all the reasons people state for not wanting to make a purchase. These are called benefit barriers.
Step 1. Categorize each of the benefit barriers potential customers are stating into one of the 4 buckets below.
- They believe that the don’t need or want your benefit.
- They believe they already have your benefit.
- They don’t believe you can deliver your benefit.
- They don’t believe that your benefit is worth the price or effort.
Step 2. Select what you believe are the 3 biggest barriers.
Step 3. Develop ideas to bust each barrier using the strategies listed in the graphic. Be sure to develop multiple ideas for each barrier. Treat this process like an ideation session.
Here’s an example. Let’s say one of the barriers people have to buying your fresh lemonade is that people prefer other beverages to lemonade. They simply don’t like the taste of lemonade as much as their preferred beverages. This barrier could be either “Don’t want your benefit” or “Already have your benefit”. So, let’s pick a barrier busting strategy in the graphic and see what we can do with it.
Barrier: Don’t want your benefit
Reason: Prefer the taste of other beverages to lemonade.
Strategy: Develop alternate benefits.
Idea: Each glass of Revive gives you the health benefits of 1 lemon
This new benefit, “the health benefits of 1 lemon”, can work with “the great taste of freshly squeezed” and creates a reason to make this an everyday essential beverage, even if it’s not your preferred taste. We aren’t even making any specific health claims, and there are numerous studies and articles online about the health benefits of lemons.
We want as many barrier busting ideas as possible for each barrier. So, let’s try another. This time let’s work in the barrier of “Already have your benefit”.
Barrier: Already have your benefit
Reason: I already have beverages that taste great.
Strategy: Show how your brand better delivers the benefit.
Idea: Free samples of Revive freshly squeezed lemonade.
Develop as many ideas as you can. You will likely have multiple ideas for a single strategy.
The next step is to use these barrier busters to develop marketing maps and narrow down the ideas to the most promising ones and set ourselves up for great execution.
