Last Monday I introduced the second element of the Open Source Marketing Circuit Questionnaire, Products and Services, extending it to included Causes. This time the focus is on your proposition, the thing you actually sell.
The circuit questionnaire includes five elements and the aim is to explore each element at a very deep level. The order below is the order in the circuit questionnaire and follows a logical sequence. However, many people may find a different order works for them.
- You / Your Brand
- Products / Services
- Proposition
- Problem
- Market
The pattern I’m using to describe the elements in the circuit questionnaire, is to show how each can be used in marketing a cause and then use my business as an example.
Proposition
You may remember a couple of posts ago, I mentioned you sell yourself or your brand and last time I suggested some businesses use a cause to sell their product or service. A cause can function in two ways. It can be something you market in its own right, where you seek some action from the person who responds to the cause. I’ll call this the cause as commodity. The other function is cause as a proposition, where the cause is a reason to purchase something else. So, for example, concern for the environment may be a reason to purchase an environmental soap powder.
Not all propositions are causes. For example, a proposition may appeal directly to self–interest so you are purchasing health, a career, wealth, friendship or whatever. It is important to understand self-interest as an ethical approach to marketing and indeed it is a principle underpinning mutual businesses as well as many conventional businesses. The retail co-operatives were primarily an appeal to self-interest and they always had an ethical dimension.
In this table I illustrate the relationships between cause as commodity and cause as proposition.
| Cause as commodity | Product / Service as commodity | |
| Cause as Proposition | (1) Campaign appeals to values | (2) Ethical product or service |
| Self-interest as Proposition | (3) Campaign appeals to self-interest | (4) Product or service appeals to self-interest |
Ethical Marketing
So, let’s say your cause is an alternative to high sugar foods. At (1) you appeal to people’s values to respond to your campaign for signatures, donations or some other action. They may do this because they object to corporations adding high concentrations of sugar to foods; damaging the health of the population for profit. At (2) you could use the appeal to the same values to buy food guaranteed low in sugar. At (3) you appeal to people’s self-interest, for example the effect of adulterated food on your health or your family’s health. Many people may respond out of self-interest and see the ethical power of adding their voice to many others. At (4), you may sell the product because it is healthier.
All of these are ethical approaches to marketing. They can be combined, eg a campaign about high sugar in food might combine values and self-interest in its proposition. Equally a low sugar food could use both ethical and self-interest arguments: “You can eat this to protect your health and not support businesses that add too much sugar to foodstuffs.” The approach you use will depend on your overall marketing strategy.
My Proposition
So, here is the proposition for my business, written a few months ago:
“Here’s an opportunity for you to make substantial progress with your business or organisation’s strategy, whilst you integrate your online and real-life activities, with someone who understands the problems you’re likely to encounter.“
Reading it now it seems somewhat stilted and has no cause as proposition, it is an appeal solely to self-interest. Now, this is not necessarily a problem but it does not resonate with the material about the local economy on my website. Here’s an alternative:
“If you find your plans to transform society through your business or organisation frustrated, here is an opportunity to build your strategy, integrating your online and real-life activities, accompanied by someone who understands the problems you’re likely to encounter.”
This makes it clear I am seeking clients who want to change things beyond their economic or community activities. Note also I am marketing myself! This combines a problem with the means to find a solution. Next time we’ll take a closer look at problems.
