Do you want to try a delicious cupcake?
I’m going to make you a cupcake. You’ve got two choices.
The first one looks like a cupcake. But I’m going to make it as fast and as cheap as I can. I’ll use a bit of cocoa but not too much, and just the cheap stuff. I’ll add some brown food colour to make it look more chocolatey. It’ll have powdered egg and other powdered stuff because that’s easier and while I’m at it I might as well make one hundred so I can just give them to anybody. It’s going to look great though. It’ll have super sweet hot pink icing in a big pile on top.
Or… you can have one of these handmade ones. I can only make a dozen. But I’ll be using real eggs, real chocolate. There’s gonna be big chunks of chocolate all the way through. I’m going to use organic ingredients and they’re going to be amazing. I might drizzle some melted chocolate on top if you like.
So which one do you want? The one that looks pretty and fancy but there’s no substance? It’s all pink icing with some dry, powdery cake attached underneath?
Or do you want the handmade one with chunks of chocolate goodness all the way through?
Which one are you making?
Marketing is not the sweet pink icing you put on top to attract (and fool) people. Your customers are smarter than that. People know when it's all icing and no cake.
Marketing is baked in. It’s the whole thing. There’s a bit of fancy on top—you've got to catch their attention—but you have to consider the whole cake.
It’s not about making hundreds on the cheap so you can flog them to everyone. It’s a small batch, made just how your people like it. Available here, not everywhere. If you do a good job, and things go well, after they’ve experienced it they'll want more. And next time they'll bring their friends.
That’s the goal.
There are tactics that help you do that. But it’s not about tactics and surface stuff. Real marketing influences the whole cake. With value baked right the way through.
So if you're baking a cake, which kind are you going to make?
