What is utility based marketing?
In this blog I will look to answer the question "what is utility based marketing?"
Now this is a concept I completely 100% believe in. The idea is based around adding value to your prospects customers and even competitors customers with something that may not be directly related to your product or service.
There is a lot to swallow in that last paragraph but if you understand the need in today's buying process to add value and take your prospects and customer on a journey, then this will come as a no brainer. However if you are the kind of person who questions the ROI of social media then maybe you wont be so enthralled with this concept.
So to the question, what exactly is utility based marketing? The idea is quite simple. You provide some kind of service or product that is of huge use to your target audience. You generally provide it for free but the value of  the service or product you are providing is something they would at least expect to have to pay for.
I will give a few examples but full disclosure I have taken these from Jay Baer's excellent book Youtility.
Columbia sportswear provide clothing and equipment for all kinds of outdoor pursuits. They understood that their audience are often on mountain sides and something that would be useful is a mobile app for knots. That's right knots. The company do not sell rope they sell clothing for outdoor pursuits but it was of real value to their target audience. The app did not need a signal to work and did not promote other products they did sell just their branding.
This was real utility based marketing and the app was download tens of thousands of times and where do you think those people thought of when it comes to outdoor closing?
Another example again from the book is the sit or squat app from Charmin the toliet paper maker. This app listed local public toilets and ratings of how clean they were and what facilities they had. This is of huge value to family's on the road who had young children. Knowing where the nearest clean public toilets are can be a life saver. Now the brand did not provide the toilets and probably not the toilet paper either. But the value from the app sure would have put the brand in a good light the next time that family were in the super market isle and thinking about what brand of toilet paper to use.
Now I appreciate not every small business can afford to build a mobile app for free. But you could provide a newsletter that provided really useful and valuable information and links that your prospects will love. You could produce an email course for free or record some video. Host a meetup, the list is endless.
It does not have to cost lots of money it just has to demonstrate value to your audience.
I hope this was useful and will maybe get you to think about using some ultiltly based marketing?
Last thing if you like this idea get the book Youtility by Jay Baer.
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Author- Speaker - Consultant. Passionate about all things digital.