The Power of Friction in Marketing

When we talk about friction in marketing, usually it's a pretty bad thing. You don't want anything to get in the way of your prospects and your customers getting the value of your product. But there's actually a few ways that friction can be an advantage for you to grow in your market. So, here are three ways that friction can be used to help your business.

Differentiate

First, in differentiating what you do, the harder it is to do what your business does, the harder it is for other people to do it like you. So, your long years of effort and learning and experience that make you very special, is effort that has earned you the ability to offer things that others can't. So, when things are hard- double down and keep pushing because you are on the path to finding a way to stand out in the market.

Qualify Prospects

Secondly, yes, we want it to be very easy for your prospects and your clients to get to your goodness and what you offer, but it should be true for the people that really can value the people that you are trying to help, that really can value what you do. You want that to happen. Wouldn't it be great if for those that aren't a good fit for you, there was resistance there and it wasn't easy or, often that they were gonna push their way through. So, in some ways, if you're very clear about who you help and who you don't help, and if you're very upfront about how your products work and don't work, that can actually make your process more efficient because it deters people that you really aren't able to help in a good way and aren't profitable clients for you anyway. So, sometimes adding some friction for the people that aren't the target of your business will help you to succeed.

Unleash Creativity

And third, on the creative side, constraints create new things. Innovation flourishes when there are limits put in place to force that creativity. So, if you have specifics and let's call it creative friction around what you're trying to accomplish with your messaging or your design, that's a good thing because that drives you to create something new, pushes you out of the comfort zone that everybody else is sharing with you and allows you to stand out creatively.