If you want to increase sales and grow your business, one of the best marketing tips I can give you is to leverage the concept of knowledge gaps.

And if you’re thinking “Great. But what does that even mean?” — stick with me.

I have a story for you… and more importantly, a strategy.

Knowledge Gaps and Unicorns (A Marketing Lesson)

Until recently, I believed in unicorns.

(There’s a marketing lesson in here. Promise.)

When I say “I believed,” I mean I mostly thought they were real. Or had been at one point.

Totally plausible backstory:

My mother told me they were real. That’s a good reason, right?

I mean, the concept of believing your parents is ingrained in you from a young age. And so I did. For a long time.

When I asked her why they weren’t roaming the Earth today? Her answer (and this is a direct quote):

“Oh bug, they didn’t make it onto the Ark during the Great Flood because they were too beautiful for this world.”

It made sense. At the time. 

As a child, I’d always get sad thinking about all those beautiful, sparkly, magical unicorns… drowning. (I’m pretty sure my mother meant for me to think that they were whisked away by some sort of deus ex machina — literally — but that is not where my morbid imagination went.)

Granted, she would say it with a sort of twinkle in her eye — but as a child, I didn’t pick up on subtleties very well so I didn’t get it. And I didn’t get it for years.

Years.

Like, WAY longer than appropriate. ::cough cough:: Maybe I was well into my 20s. ::cough cough:: 

I think I came around to the idea that they probably weren’t real the way that children start to sloooowly come around to the idea that maybe Santa Claus isn’t real but don’t believe it fully until they are told so.

The difference here is that I was never “told” that unicorns aren’t real; it was just assumed that I would know better when I got older.

And I do. Know better. Mostly.

But like… ok, maybe I still believe they’re real. -Ish. Or want them to be real. Or all of the above.

If you want to see this in video form, press play below!

Moral of the story:

We all have knowledge gaps. Some are sillier than others.

Also, parents often lie to their children. 😉

Okay, but for real, the real moral — the real takeaway for you the business owner here is that your customers are a lot like young, naive, unicorn-affirming Courtney.

They don’t necessarily believe In unicorns, I mean they might, but that’s not the point.

But your customers definitely have knowledge gaps. And when it comes to the products and services that you sell and deliver, they have knowledge gaps about those, too.

HOW KNOWLEDGE GAPS INCREASE SALES AND BUILD KNOW-LIKE-TRUST

Knowledge gaps like…

How does it even work? How would this really help me? Why do I really need this?

And when we have knowledge gaps, we tend to do one of two things:

1. We tend to try to fill those knowledge gaps with — you guessed it — knowledge!
2. OR… we don’t. And we move on. 

So the knowledge gap of “How does this even work?” becomes “Hmmm…this probably doesn’t work.”

OR “How could this really help me?” becomes “Nah, I bet this wouldn’t really help me…”

AND “Why do I really need this?” becomes “Nah, I don’t need this.”

When in reality your product or service could help them, they do need it, and you know it does work.

But as the saying goes “You don’t know what you don’t know.”

Neither do your customers.

HOW TO INCREASE SALES LEVERAGING KNOWLEDGE GAPS

Now, you might be thinking isn’t the responsibility on the consumer to do their research, to learn more about you, and to use that research to make the best decision which is ultimately, to work with you?

A little bit yes.

And a little bit… no.

Because the bigger point here is that you can’t control what your would-be customers do, but you can control what you do. You can control how you show up.

SO… If you’ve never thought of the concept of knowledge gaps as they relate to your products and services before, I urge you to consider it.

What are some things that are obvious to you… but not might not be obvious to others about your business, your products, and your services?

Also, hat are some knowledge gaps that people might have that — if they were filled — would mean they were more likely to want to work with you?

Furthermore, What kind of education do you need to give about what you have to offer so that people have a full understanding of how you can help them?

QUESTIONS TO ASK WHEN LEVERAGING KNOWLEDGE GAPS TO INCREASE SALES

👉“If people just knew how much _______ could help them, there’d be a line down the street.”

OR

👉“If people just knew that our products are better than others because of ________, we’d have a waitlist for months.”

OR

👉“If I could tell all of our would-be customers this one thing about our products or services, we’d be sold out all the time.”

If you’ve never asked yourself those kinds of questions before, now is the time to start doing that.

And with that information, that should change how you show up, the kind of content that you share on social media, the kind of information you put on your website, the kinds of things you email people about, pretty much every facet of your marketing strategy could be improved if you looked at it through the filter of: acknowledging and filling knowledge gaps.

So, don’t just assume they know, because they might not know. Again, it might be easy and obvious to you, BUT it might not be easy and obvious to your customers.

They don’t know what they don’t know… but if they knew, they’d choose you. 😉

—

OK, now, your turn. Let’s get back to the unicorns, shall we?

What are your weird knowledge gaps?

Any firmly held beliefs that you recently learned were completely wrong?

Oh PLEASE share in the comments below, and let’s all commiserate over the lies our parents or society or the Internet have all told us. 😂

HI, I’M COURTNEY!

I’m here to help you build, grow, and scale your business.

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