Marketing is first and foremost about pattern-breaking.

We all live in a Yellow Submarine. We are encased in our lives as we currently live them submerged in a ocean of our own wants and desires. It is a coping mechanism to protect ourselves from the outside world. Unfortunately, all our prospects live in a submarine, too. They are submersed under the waves, secure in the patterns of their lives. Pattern-breaking is crucial to marketing as most people live their lives inside a microcosm, an iron shell that must be cracked before each person can be reached.

Pattern for success. Patterns are not necessarily bad. Once you figure out how to do something, you want to replicate success. Developing a pattern for successful work completion is a great thing. Developing "muscle memory" for sports is how rookies become pros. Patterns for success are efficient.

Developing a pattern for your work day, your work week, can be tremendously liberating. If you know payroll is on Wednesday you don't have to plan Wednesday. If you know you call back group leaders from 9-11AM each day, you know you'll be on schedule and have time to accomplish your tasks. Patterns for success are valuable.

Patterns of life. You have a pattern to your life. You shop for groceries in the same store. You eat at the same restaurants. You drive the same way to the movies. Sit in the same pew at church. Only drink Starbucks. Always get up at 7:15AM. Buy gas at the same two stations. Ideally, you are creating customers that put you in the pattern of their lives. Either shopping for fruit or produce with you on a regular basis or visiting you seasonally for pumpkins and corn maze adventures. You want to be in their patterns of life.

Patterns for protection. Tricker are patterns in our potential customers. Currently, they have developed patterns of life that exclude you. They don't need you and you often aren't even on their radar. Worse yet, they have a deeply entrenched pattern of ignoring marketers altogether. They developed this "pattern of protection" to ward off telemarketers and swindlers. You aren't in their pattern and they have a pattern to keep you away. Yikes!

Pattern-breaking. As you formulate your marketing plan for the year, you have to particularly pay attention to breaking the pattern of your prospects' lives. Without breaking that pattern, you have zero chance of them listening to your message. Even less chance of them acting upon it.

Pattern breaking strategy. How do you break customer patterns? If I really had the definitive answer I'd be much wealthier, but I'll share some strategies in any case.

The classic, straightforward way to break patterns is to advertise. You tell people who don't know you about you. Even advertising becomes a pattern over time. Effective advertising must remain different enough to continue to engage your customers' minds or it's utility diminishes over time.

Meeting prospects in different settings is a pattern-breaking strategy. Show up at a ball park to hand out brochures. Partner with a fast food chain to introduce your message in a new environment.

Promotions for pattern breaking. Consider promotions as part of your marketing budget specifically targeted to break guest patterns. That means that your promotion must be new, different and target a new, different population. That might be different by age, region, type, product, but it must be different from anything you are doing now. Otherwise, it's still in your pattern. It's a diminishing return.

Here's an example: If you always advertise on one particular radio station, you probably don't need to buy another promotion on that station. You need to do a completely new promotion on another, different station to see if you can break the pattern of those listeners. Your ads will have the added bonus of sounding "new" because the new station's listeners haven't heard them before.

Change your pattern. If you've never entered the local parade, do it. If you've never tried TV, try it. If you've always used one newspaper, use the other one. If you've neglected social media, go bonkers with it. You have control over your pattern and if you don't change it, your results will diminish over time. Once your marketing creates a pattern, people get used to it and slowly begin to ignore it. Think about a great TV mystery you like. Generally, you like it because it keeps you guessing, you don't know what's going to happen. (My current favorite is Daybreak, streaming from NetFlix.) Marketing is the same. Once it's predictable, your done.

We are creatures of habit, of patterns. Examine the patterns in your life. Are they patterns of success? Specifically designed for success? Examine the patterns of your desired customers. Where to they shop, drive, eat, attend, do things currently? How can you break their patterns?

How can you help them create a pattern that includes you?

Have a great week.
- Hugh