Relevance 101

There’s been quite a lot of buzz of late about relevance – and “buzz” is precisely the right word when a lot of people are talking about something as if they feel it is extremely important, yet nobody can seem to define quite what it is nor can they clearly tell you how to achieve it.   So I picked up Coville’s book on the topic, and found myself only slightly less unenlightened.   It’s largely cheerleading for the cause and attempts to define the topic in a bit more detail, but still falls short on the execution.  "You ought to be relevant.... somehow."

As best I can figure it, relevance is about making customers care about your product by positioning it in a way that speaks to the things they already care about, as opposed to starting with a product and looking for ways to persuade people that they ought to want it for the reasons the manufacturer thinks they should desire it.   Which is to say, it’s a topic for an introductory marketing course that’s been largely relegated to the footnotes, and is now being overdramatized based on no additional information.

The basic definition of "marketing" is connecting people with products.   You make something people need and tell them how to get it.  If you’re correct in your assumptions about their needs then customers will show up cash in hand, eager to purchase.   That sounds simple, until you recognize that there are many other firms (possibly the vast majority) that make products people don’t really need, and who spend larger sums of cash attempting to convince them that they do.   Or perhaps they make something that people could  use instead of what they currently do, and spend equally large sums of cash attempting to convince people that the product they enjoy making is better in some vague way.

The difference, which may be a bit subtle, depends on where you begin.  Do you begin by considering what needs exist and then develop a product to fill them, or do you begin with a product that is irrelevant and attempt to convince people they have a need for it?   The former is the more straightforward approach, and more likely to result in success. For products that already exist, it’s equally important to keep an eye on the market to determine when they might need to be altered or scrapped because of the changing needs of the customer (or more often, because a competitor has discovered a better way to fulfill existing needs).

Why it takes ten chapters to communicate that basic notion is beyond my reckoning, and why the scores of articles, studies, and blogs that attempt to promote the concept can’t bring themselves to disclose this simple formula is likewise unfathomable.