Using the Customer's Knowledge Gap

In its infancy… marketing was designed to grow and push the curiosity of the consumer. It was monumental to the buying of billboards for the increase of market share in a given location or product line. In the technology driven world of today… where marketing is drilled down to a dull roar and people are ignoring… practically everything… curiosity will always reign supreme.

Curiosity (in the marketing sense) can be defined as a GAP in the consumer’s knowledge (Check out Made to Stick, page 84). The curiosity or knowledge gap has the potential of being completely debilitating for the individual. The debilitation happens when the individual understands they are missing something.Learning is… fundamentally… the pursuit of knowledge and is a universal trait in most human beings. When you feel the knowledge gap you scramble around trying to find something to fill it.

So many times companies try to throw the facts at their consumers without telling them why they need to learn it in the first place. “This is what makes our product work! It is a semi-conductor flex conductor.” Eventually they get to the need statement but.

I don’t care about the flex mumbo jumbo. How will it make my life easier!? Tell me a story. Give me example. Fill my knowledge GAP with education that matters… lives and breathe…. not a brochure.

Functionality is only a piece of the puzzle. Everyone can say they do something… it is the stories that matter.