Written by: Vickie Sullivan | May 17, 2016

How to Carve Your Place In a Crowded Market

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If there is money in a market segment, you can bet there will be competition—for attention, for prominence, for the next big client. In an environment of crazy attention-getting stunts, what works and what doesn’t?

A recent Fast Company article, How One Man Found Inner F*cking Peace Creating Profanity-Filled Guided Meditations, highlights a great example of what could have been a disaster but wasn’t. Jason Headley, author of the book F*ck That: An Honest Meditation, took a private joke and jumped in the feel-good, love-everybody market segment of meditation—with the “F-word.” (Yes, that one.)

Let’s move past that elephant in the room and look at what we can learn here.

• Acknowledge reality. Not everyone is blissed out with meditation, especially beginners. And using bad words telegraphs this message: Yes, you are still thinking those thoughts. And it’s OK. Headley takes the internal judgement out in the open.

• Take advantage of the attention. Jason created a YouTube video as a private joke. After almost 7 million hits, it became a clue. His next step: make an app. When that sold well, he then wrote a book. Check out the timing here. He got attention, then made some money, then wrote a book. How many times do we use a book to launch us instead of leverage what momentum we have?

Let’s be clear: I am not advocating swear words in public. (What belongs in a bar should stay there.) My point: Jason’s perspective that “stuff happens” struck a chord in all of us. Your headline can be brash if you bring out what everyone else is thinking.

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Filed Under: Market Strategy

Tagged With: marketing strategy, Thought Leadership