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Dont let a system become your religion

by gareth
4 replies
I came across an old book from the 1800's by a French art teacher that trained Rodin & many famous French artists of the time.

Basically its a six month program to develop a photographic memory by drawing practice.

Now I am an artist and this has immense appeal to me. There are books on memory training & books on art methods but no modern books combining the two.

Bestsellers are plentiful in both genre's so it seems to me like a fantastic idea for an art course & book.

So I shot off a tweet to a big name marketer. He retorted that the idea was crap & nobody is searching for that. I just cant help but to disagree.

So I shot off an email to one of the top selling art authors in the world & she being an artist like myself was immediately captivated by the idea and emailed me back asking for a reply in a month or so when she has gone over the book and experimented with the method. Yes she wants to do a book on it.

The point is that nobody is searching for any search terms "directly" related to this subject ---> BUT millions of people search for information on how to draw & how to improve their memory.

Whats more being in the market (artists) I know what the market wants. I know how the book should be written & presented to fill that want. How to market it is another thing.


No body was searching for "how to draw on the right side of the brain"

But they were searching for "how to draw" the rest is a USP. So "how to draw from memory" is a USP or "Improve your memory by drawing" is a USP.

So straight keyword research while a foolproof system - is not a complete system.

What are some warrior thoughts on applying USP principles to popular high traffic keyword searches ?
#religion #system
  • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
    My old engineering manager always used to say that every time we came up with a "foolproof" system for anything, the fools got better. Meaning that there is no such animal as a foolproof system.

    Straight keyword research fits that bill, IMO.

    Too many people get hung up on absolutes and iron-clad rules. They'll tackle a search term that their tool of choice says gets 10,000 searches in a month but ignore one that "only" gets 9,999. They'll go after a term with less than 5,000 pages returned when their phrase is returned in quotes, but throw out a term with 5,001. Or they'll ignore any page not on the first page of Google because some SEO course said the first page gets 98% of all clicks. And on it goes...

    These may be worthwhile if your entire market is made up of people sitting at their computers, mouse in one hand and credit card in the other, looking for a deal on a Whiz-Bang 2000 widget using the phrase "cheapest Whiz-Bang 2000".

    On the other hand, concentrating on what those people actually want to accomplish - improving their memory or developing their drawing skills in this case - opens up a much wider universe of prospects seeking a specific benefit.

    If I was presented with a phrase like "best deal on a Dingo XL", the first thing I'd want to know is what that was and what it did. What do users end up with after using the Dingo XL? What does that do for them, or what do they get out of that?

    If you continue that line of thinking, you give yourself access to prospects at many points of the buying cycle, and you can lead them to the solution you offer. Do it right, and that prospect never even knows that Joe Keyword ranks number 2 in Google for "best deal on Dingo XL" because he's already bought his - from you.
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    • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
      Originally Posted by JohnMcCabe View Post

      My old engineering manager always used to say that every time we came up with a "foolproof" system for anything, the fools got better. Meaning that there is no such animal as a foolproof system.
      "Programming is a race between programmers trying to create bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the universe trying to create bigger and better idiots."

      If I was presented with a phrase like "best deal on a Dingo XL", the first thing I'd want to know is what that was and what it did. What do users end up with after using the Dingo XL? What does that do for them, or what do they get out of that?
      Features and benefits... the age-old issue copywriters scream from the rooftops. Sell the sizzle, not the steak - but in the end, the customer wants not to be hungry.
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      "The Golden Town is the Golden Town no longer. They have sold their pillars for brass and their temples for money, they have made coins out of their golden doors. It is become a dark town full of trouble, there is no ease in its streets, beauty has left it and the old songs are gone." - Lord Dunsany, The Messengers
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  • Profile picture of the author gareth
    Keywords are great but they only let you see so far into a markets mind & not necessary into the future.

    I will play around with the USP add on idea sometime. It could be a great system LOL.
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    Gareth M Thomas
    Serial Entrepreneur
    Auckland, New Zealand

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