Thoughts on the Purple Cow
As I’m sure you know by now,
I talk about the three pillars of Merchant Success a lot. They are Product-Market Fit (PMF), Merchant-Market Fit (MMF), and Product-Channel Fit (PCF).
The reason is that these are the ESSENTIAL ingredients that make up a successful eCom business.
However, I am asked a question about PMF over and over again.
There are many, many products that have PMF baked right into them.
Food, fashion, leggings, coffee, toothpaste, make-up, cleaning products, etc.
We KNOW people already buy these things in droves.
You don’t have to introduce a new concept that no one has heard of before to your market and explain how it works.
Then why is it still so hard? Let’s use an example of trying to build a wildly successful skincare brand?
People buy toners and masks every day, right?
Absolutely.
But a majority of people buy them from brands that have been around for decades,
Brands that have dumped 100s of millions of dollars into marketing,
Brands that have an international brick-and-mortar presence.
You get the idea.
The David and Goliath analogy does not even describe the situation.
It’s more like my 19-month-old son versus Cthulhu.
So how do you compete at Goliath’s level?
Easy. You don’t.
You drill down on your products, brand, and customer avatar and figure out what makes you different.
You need to be the Purple Cow.
And you need to be able to explain this difference in one sentence.
For example, a client in the makeup industry says this:
“Stackable makeup for the girl on the go.”
That’s it. That is what separates them from the millions of other makeup brands.
And I can tell you they do very well in terms of sales.
Another of our clients sells jewelry. Here’s their tag line:
“Vintage and antique jewelry at unbeatable prices.”
There are other words for this … X-factor, competitive advantage, unique selling proposition, etc.
The point is that you have to create your differentiation and then triple down on the messaging.
It becomes who you are. The very fabric of your being.
But it has to be RESONANT.
10 years ago, you could say you were the only sustainably manufactured beauty brand.
That won’t fly today.
Being a Purple Cow means people on the highway look at you and go, “Holy schnikes!!!”
They pull over. They get out of their car and take a photo.
They tell the story to anyone who will listen.
What is your Purple Cow sentence?
