Successful salespeople know one thing for certain. When you can get a sales lead to laugh, you’re 90% of the way to closing the deal.
Laughter breaks down barriers. It’s a natural way to create affinity and trust. Simply put, we like people who make us laugh, and we tend to buy from people we like.
If your website and product description are funny, it’s means you also have a strong brand voice. This carries over into content and social media marketing.
In the crowded world of online content, people tend to remember either brands they admire or brands with interesting, unique content.
You can even test this. Ask some people to name a logo they like. At first, most will name a few of the huge brands they remember (Nike, Apple, Coke, etc.), then they’ll name brands they enjoy or admire. They won’t name the ones with most clever designs.
Why is this? Because it’s not the logo that makes the brand, it’s the brand that makes the logo.
Of course, being funny isn’t easy and not every brand or product lends itself to humor. But when you slip in a good joke and get prospects to crack a smile, you’re giving yourself a competitive advantage.
Here are a few examples to give you inspiration.
Whiskey River Soaps
This soap company takes an everyday item – soap – and makes it memorable with hilarious product names and descriptions. The best come with their bath bomb products:
For example, this soap (might) make the perfect gift for the 5th year college student (it’s “pseudo-craft beer scented):
5th year?
You mean my victory lap! Yeah, that’s right. My parents totally don’t get it, but I’m learning mad skills right now. Shotgun a beer in less than 30 seconds? Yep. While doing a cartwheel? Check. Know every Four Loko flavor blindfolded? You know I do. Push off loans and avoid getting a real job? What it’s all about, bro.
Here’s one we can all relate to:
Narcissist much?
We all know that you can make kissy lips. We’ve seen it more than a thousand times now. We also know that you cleaned your apartment in rubber gloves on Tuesday, tried out raspberry lip gloss yesterday, and posed with your cat on a leash this morning. Good for you. Really. Okay, no, not really. Please stop this parade of narcissistic madness or I’m going to block the heck out of you, and you’re my frickin’ mom.
This company has dozens of these themed soaps. When you look through them, you realize the irreverent names and descriptions are really the highlight. Like any good joke, they focus on topics we all relate too and address them with a bold voice that surprises and delights us.
Freakers USA
Freakers is a company that makes drink koozies. They sell with witty brand voice.
For example:
John Lemon
You may say I’m a Freaker, but I’m not the only one.
Yoga Makes Me Fart
We’ve all bean there.
Silly stuff, but memorable and unique.
Saddleback Leather
This company, which makes leather bags and backpacks, shows how to throw some humor into a promotion:
This quirky promotional idea grabs your attention, and while it seems absurd at first it is a legitimate promotion (the idea being you really buy the car and get the bag with matching seats).
Blendtec
You might think a product like a blender has little chance to be funny.
Blendtec proves you wrong. They’ve built their brand around ridiculous videos in which they blend just about anything they can fit into a blender. For example, they surprise you with their method of blending a Piña Colada:
As goofy host Tom Dickson lampoons the idea of a product test, you are impressed by what these blender will blend. Funny – and an effective product demo.
A Profitable Punch Line
One reason so few businesses use humor effectively is that they do it as an afterthought. They start out with completely serious brand idea, then try to throw in something funny afterwords.
It works best – and may even be essential – to make the decision about how you’ll use humor in your brand voice early on when you’re developing your business strategy.
It’s obvious that brands like Whiskey River Soaps and Freakers started out with idea that a funny brand voice would be part of their marketing and product presentation. In fact, the humor they instill into the product ideas is a big part of the product itself.
Blendtec probably didn’t design their blenders – initially – with the idea that they’d blend iPhones and whole coconuts to demonstrate their power, but they realized that this surprising, funny approach would give them a unique way to produce videos.
Humor is a personal choice for brands just the way it is for people. There are usually whimsical people with a great sense of humor behind funny brands.
If you have a bit of funny bone in your business, take advantage of it. One of the most effective ways to get attention with your social media and content marketing is to be funny.
It’s hard to do well, so when you can you gain a real competitive advantage.