This summer, I befriended a group of cows grazing in the plot next to where we walk the dogs.
Just for fun, as soon as I arrived at the plot, I greeted them (just hi, no moo).
A couple of days after practising this daily ritual, one of them walked slowly towards the fence, and it wasn’t long before all the rest would join her. Next, they followed me along the fence as I walked.
They’d look at me with a fixed gaze, and some of them came very close to the electric fence but didn’t move any further.
How many times have you had that feeling with your marketing? Like you do everything you are supposed to (like me greeting the cows gaining their trust), prospects coming closer and then nothing happens?
It’s like there is an invisible electric fence keeping the potential clients away. Right?
You are not alone.
Marketing has many moving parts, but they all need to work together. Hence when one element of your marketing is not working right, it ripples through all of it, making it very difficult to reach your goals.
Back to the cows…
I did some research and got you interesting lessons that you can apply to your marketing strategy right away.
Three Marketing Lessons from Cows
1) COWS DON’T LIKE SMELLY THINGS
These mammals have an impressive sense of smell–they can smell up to 9 kilometres away. They find manure repellent to the point that they do not graze around their own manure flats. They also find the smell of saliva or snot from other cows dirty.
I guess you know where I am heading with this.
Marketing wise means prospects can see marketing BS from far away. It works like an electric fence: keeps them away and distrustful. Ensure everything you put out there is with your customer in mind and with service and a genuine interest mindset. Also, don’t copy other people’s strategies. Tapping into someone else’s marketing style instead of your own ain’t gonna get you results and certainly won’t help you be authentic (learn how to leverage your marketing style to get better results).
2) COWS WITH NAMES PRODUCE MORE MILK
A 2009 study from Newcastle University discovered that when farmers have a good relationship with their cows—meaning they give them names and show enough affection—they can produce more than 257 thousand litters of milk annually than their lonely counterparts. An average cow produces about 7.5 million litres of milk a year.
Wondering what is in a name? Well, about 3,6% more milk if you ask me.
Marketing wise naming the cows is the equivalent of helping our audience really see themselves in our marketing – and knowing there’s a human behind whatever marketing effort is being put forth.
For your marketing to deliver results, you must understand your customer, know what keeps them awake at night, prevent them from taking action, and then decide how your product or service helps solve their problem.
When you know every aspect of your ideal customer, your core marketing message (the answer to the question “what do you do?”) will strike a chord with them and open the path to growing the relationship. Also, you will know what content you should be putting out there that provides answers to their questions, creating the necessary trust for them to contact you.
Seeing our audience/clients as people, instead of as prospects or leads, allows us to strengthen the relationship, ensuring you have a steady stream of returning customers who are more likely to buy your services again. In fact, returning clients spend more, are keen to try new products and have a greater potential to increase your revenues long term.
How about automation? Nothing wrong with leverage automation to market your business. Efficient people manage to be so by, well, automating processes and repetitive tasks. Just be watchful, tools aren’t magical, and you may end up missing the connection and become unable to truly and accurately understand customers and address their issues.
3) COWS HAVE PREFERENCES AND HOLD GRUDGES
Like humans, cows (cattle) form close friendships and choose to spend much of their time with 2-4 preferred individuals. They also hold grudges for years and may dislike particular individuals.
Marketing & business owner wise this means you need to know when you are done with someone, whether it’s clients, gurus or providers (check 6 signs it’s time to ditch a client .)
Time management and positive energy are essential for any entrepreneur. Once you’ve experienced a few bad clients/gurus/providers, you quickly learn to spot and, ideally, let them go without resentment or grudge.
Amazing facts about cows
All “cows” are female. Males are called bulls or steer. Before having a calf for the very first time, a female is called a heifer. Then, once she has her first calf, she becomes a cow.
Cows are colour blind to red and green, meaning that they see a shade of black or grey instead. Bulls don’t get angry by the colour, but the cape’s movement when the matador whips it.
A cow will chew for up to eight hours a day and move its jaws about 40,000 times a day.
Cows are very social and don’t like to be alone.
Cows can see almost 360 degrees. However, they don’t see well straight in front of them, and they will typically turn their head to look at you.
Cows hear higher tones better than we do and hear sounds that we don’t hear. People are probably better able to judge exactly where the sound comes from than cows.
There is a hierarchy within a herd. The ranking is about the right to be the first to eat.
Sources: Wikipedia, mentalfloss.com, clovermeadowsbeef.com, koesignalen ontwikkelcentrum
Want more marketing lessons from every day’s life?
Seven Marketing Lessons from Candy Crush
Five Marketing Lessons from the Keukenhof
