Let me ask you something: How do you prefer to discover and buy products?

Wait.

Before you answer, consider a different question: How do you actually end up buying things?

The gap between these two answers explains so much about marketing effectiveness.

Do you love getting cold calls from salespeople? Or when someone connects on LinkedIn only to immediately pitch you their B2B software (and throw you in their drip campaign)?

Of course not. None of us do.

Yet my company became Hubspot partners a decade ago after exactly that — a sales call followed by persistent follow-ups. I didn’t want to be sold to that way.

The thing is, it worked.

Do you enjoy when your peaceful Facebook scrolling is interrupted by an ad carefully crafted to look like a friend’s post? Most people claim to hate this.

Yet billions in revenue flow through these channels every year because, well, they also work.

My new sit-stand desk (from Uplift, highly recommended) wasn’t purchased through an ad. It came after my partner conducted deep comparative research.

That’s how I like to buy things — methodically, based on substantive information.

But if I’m honest, how many of my purchases actually follow that ideal path? Surprisingly few.

In I Need That, I explore how the rational “tank brain” and emotional “dog brain” influence our purchasing decisions. We like to think our rational brain is in control of our buying habits, but evidence suggests otherwise.

Our stated preferences (“I make decisions based on careful research”) often conflict with our actual behaviors (impulsively clicking “buy now” after seeing something for the third time).

This creates a funky paradox for marketers. The tactics we personally find annoying as consumers are often the same ones that drive our sales as product makers.

The key isn’t to abandon what works.

It’s to make your approach 10X better than the crap you hate!

Product Payoff: Good old Dollar Shave Club perfected this approach when they blew up the razor industry. Founder Mike Dubin’s classic launch video mocked traditional advertising while still using a pile of proven marketing techniques. They acknowledged the annoyance of buying overpriced razors in locked cases while creating an equally intrusive (but way more entertaining) advertisement. Within 48 hours of launching, DSC had 12,000 subscribers. Within three years, the business was acquired for $1 billion – by Unilever, one of those giants they succeeded by mocking. They didn’t abandon interruption marketing, but made it fresh and entertaining enough that people willingly shared it. Clients still ask to mimic that 2011 video’s approach.

Action for today: Think about your last THREE significant purchases. How did you actually discover those products? Was it through a method you claim to dislike? Now look at your own marketing approach. Are you avoiding certain tactics because you don’t like the tactics themselves, rather than because they don’t work for your audience?

Step out of your comfort zone, for your own good. Try running a small test of a marketing method you personally dislike but that has proven effective for others in your category.

How can you make your approach better than existing ones, while leveraging proven techniques?

How do YOU prefer to discover products?

And how do you actually end up buying them? Tap that reply arrow and share the gap between your ideal and real purchasing behavior.

Or reach out to my amazing team of product marketing agency experts at Graphos Product.