Every business has the challenge of standing out from their competitors. For your customers to enjoy the benefits of your product, they need to know about it. For them to know about it, you need to get their attention. To get their attention, you need to stand out.
Many businesses try to stand out by overselling. They promise (and sometimes over-promise) that their product is better, faster, cheaper, smaller, cooler, tastier, healthier, and more durable. Why else would people care about your product if it isn’t better?
Yesterday I interviewed Quinn Lai, the founder of Eoniq which makes custom designed and handmade watches. Recently his startup raised US$467,000 on Indiegogo, one of the biggest crowdfunding platforms in the world. “When everyone is overselling their product, you need to find a way to stand out among your overselling peers,” Quinn told me. That doesn’t mean you have to oversell as well. But it does mean you have to be creative and find a way to stand out.
Quinn tells me about an experiment he is doing with the marketing of Eoniq. He’s hired a journalist to travel around his home city of Hong Kong looking for good stories to tell. They give that person a custom handmade watch and create a video to tell their story. The first person they featured was 22-year old student pursuing his dream to become a photographer.
Here’s Eoniq’s video: