Finding customers who already need you means going to the places where the problem you solve is actively happening, instead of waiting for the right person to stumble onto your ads. It’s the difference between shouting into the feed and walking into the room where your future customer is standing there with the exact headache you cure. On Businessing, a candy bar taught that lesson better than most marketing courses do.
What did Snickers actually do?
Snickers has an ice cream bar, and they’re hiring someone they call the chief online chill officer. That person’s whole job is to find online arguments and try to calm everybody down, free Snickers ice cream in hand. On the surface it sounds like a gimmick, and honestly, if you were really in an online fight and a candy brand showed up, you’d tell them to get lost. But the play isn’t the individual intervention. The play is the story. People hear about the stunt, tell each other about it, and connect the brand to the feeling of cooling off. The brand found the living embodiment of the problem it claims to solve, which is refreshment in a heated moment, and went to where that problem was happening. That’s the part worth stealing for your business.
Why does this marketing play work?
It works because the brand starts from its transformation instead of its product. Snickers didn’t ask “where can we run ads?” They asked “where are people who need to chill out right now?” and went there. Your business has the same option. The thing you sell matters less than the transformation people get when they buy it. When you know that transformation cold, you can hunt for the exact rooms, threads, and events where the before-state lives. A bookkeeper’s future clients are in a forum panicking about a tax notice. A photographer’s future clients are asking a Facebook group why nobody takes them seriously on LinkedIn. The problem you solve is being talked about somewhere today, and showing up there beats interrupting strangers who weren’t thinking about it at all.
How do I find the conversations where my customers are?
Start with one question: where is the living embodiment of the problem I solve? Then make a short list of real places. Search Reddit and the social platforms for the words a frustrated person would actually type, not your industry jargon. Look for partnerships with businesses and organizations that work on the bigger issue your product touches. Consider volunteering where the people you serve gather, so they experience you before they ever see a pitch. The rule in every one of those places is the same, and it’s to get involved in an additive way. Answer the question. Bring the help. You’re not there to drop links, you’re there to be visibly useful, because the story people tell about you afterward is the actual marketing.
What does this look like on a small business budget?
You don’t need a national stunt or a candy company’s budget. You need an hour on your calendar and a little nerve. Pick one conversation this week where your problem is showing up and join it with something genuinely helpful. Take the walk or the shower and ask yourself who’s having the challenge you solve and where they’re having it. If you don’t know what problem you really solve, ask your best customers what was going on the day they called you. The words they use are the map to the conversations you should be joining. This is exactly the kind of thing we work on together inside the Small Business Owners Community, because it’s a lot easier to spot your own before-state when a room full of owners is helping you look.
Questions owners ask
Do I have to get into online arguments like Snickers?
No. The lesson is the targeting, not the arguing. Find where the problem you solve shows up and be helpful there. For most owners that’s a forum, a local group, or a partner’s audience, not a fight.
Isn’t jumping into conversations just spam?
It is if you show up selling. It isn’t if you show up solving. Answer the actual question, add real help, and let people discover what you do from your profile and your generosity.
How is this different from regular social media marketing?
Regular posting broadcasts to whoever happens to scroll by. This goes to people who are already living the problem, which means the message lands with someone who needs it right now.
What if I don’t know what problem I really solve?
Ask your best customers what was going on the day they called you. The words they use are the map to the conversations you should be joining.
Here’s the homework. Name the problem you solve in the words a frustrated customer would use, find one place online or in town where that problem is happening this week, and go be useful there. You can watch the full episode of Businessing with Pat Miller for the whole story.