There's a great fast casual restaurant on Main Street in Newark called Roots. They serve healthy bowls with kale and rice and veggies galore.
Once you've tried Roots, you know it's delicious. That's true with a lot of products. Once you try it, you like it. But as a marketer hoping to get new customers, how do you convince people to try it?
When there's a new Five Guys in town, your friend who's been before will say "you have to try to the new burger place by the mall." Just like when there were new Chipotles in towns that had never seen them. Someone would say "there's a new burrito place you have to try."
But Roots is in another niche. It's the healthy, fast casual trend. It's like a mashup of Chipotle and Chop't. It's a great niche except if you're trying to explain to someone new what it means.
I once tried to tell a visiting family that Roots was like Chipotle, but with kale. I could tell by the looks on their faces that they didn't end up going to Roots. So positioning against Chipotle isn't the best move to attract customers in this day and age. Calling it a salad company gets some people in the door, but that wouldn't work for people like me. "Try the new salad place on Main Street" wouldn't get me out of my seat.
So what is Roots? We can describe it and the owners can tell you what it is, but the owner's friends have all been to Roots. Your friends have not. You need a story to tell them so that they go check it out. Crafting that story is the job of the skilled marketer. The better you craft the story, the easier it will be to spread.
Note: this is a corollary to Self Contained Forwardable Stories posted
Note 2: Roots seems to have plenty of customers, so this post is in no way a criticism of their business. I mention the story as an interesting case study in marketing and branding.