I'm not sure exactly when or how it happened, but somewhere along the way, I acquired a taste for sushi.
I'm not a connoisseur, by any means -- I'll eat supermarket sushi with just as much gusto as the fancy stuff in a restaurant -- but I have moved past the "OK, try not to think about the raw part, just swallow..." phase into the "Oh, mmmmmm, WOW! Pass the pickled ginger..." phase.
The other day, I was eating some sushi that just wouldn't stay together. Each piece of sushi is supposed to be 'a perfect mouthful', but the seaweed wasn't holding things very well, and the sticky rice was sticking to everything BUT the stuff it was supposed to, and the whole thing was just disintegrating. So much for the perfect mouthful -- I couldn't even get a good forkful.
But it got me thinking about how marketing is like sushi -- I want to offer my customers a perfect mouthful every time, no more and no less.
Of course, this appealed to the metaphor-aholic in me, so I ran (rolled?) with it.
What goes into a perfect mouthful of sushi?
A fresh, tasty morsel held in a bit of rice that's just sticky enough, wrapped in a tissue-thin layer of seaweed. Add a smidgen of wasabe, a drop of soy sauce and a crisp petal of pickled ginger, and you've got the perfect balance of salty, spicy, tangy, sweet and savory.
What goes into the perfect mouthful of marketing?
- Fresh tasty morsel = the offer
- Sticky rice = the marketing copy around the offer; makes you want to stick around and read more
- Seaweed wrapper = integrity, in the form of a guarantee of satisfaction
- Pickled ginger = the value & benefits; perhaps even a little bonus
- Soy sauce = what makes it more interesting and satisfying -- credibility, testimonials, examples (also makes you thirsty for more)
- Wasabe = the kick in the pants (i.e., the call to action)
And the skill of the market-her is just as important as the skill of the sushi chef. The art and science of creating a perfect bite that holds together and is perfectly balanced in the mouth of the customer -- that's what we're going for. You need the best ingredients, the best tools and a level of mastery with the process. It takes practice to craft the perfect mouthful.
That's my sushi theory of marketing. (Pass the ginger.)
