“Do what you love and the money will follow” can be pretty bad advice for some people.
One of the most common mistakes that inexperienced marketers make is to follow their vision without researching the scope of the mass desire for it.
Master copywriter Eugene Schwartz writes emphatically:
“…(You) cannot create desire for a product. You can only take the hopes, dreams, fears and desires that already exist in the hearts of millions of people, and focus those already-existing desires onto a particular product…. Actually, it would be impossible for any one advertiser to spend enough money to actually create this mass desire. He can only exploit it. And he dies when he tries to run against it.”
Alternative energy and sustainable technology are unique because they will have urgent and nearly universal appeal.
According to most scientists, the Earth is undergoing climate change while running out of fossil fuels. If any of our most basic consumer comforts – like cool indoor temperatures, cheap gas prices or unlimited shower water – were to become even the slightest bit interrupted or scarce… people are going to wake up. Fast.
A ravenous, insatiable desire for technologies and products will suddenly be ignited. Unlike smaller niche markets like yoga, healing arts, or organic foods – which appeal to certain tastes and personalities – nearly everyone will be needing sustainable energy and products.
Centuries of collective marketplace wisdom says that people are reluctant to shell out for prevention. But once something they are deeply attached to becomes scarce or inconvenient, they will be desperate for alternatives.
And consumers are currently very attached to cheap gas, cranking up the AC, and taking long hot showers.
It’s not that green companies should run as a hedge fund to profit from crisis… but rather, they should not underestimate the potential demand for what they are developing now. We must be prepared to leverage the imminent explosion of mass desire and honorably fulfill it.
