Don't you just love it when people get steamed really hard about politics and the like, such passionate issues indeed.
Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in that person's shoes........then you’ll be a mile away from them and you'll have their shoes....Bahahaha.
I remember saying to my wife a long time ago that I was sick and tired of seeing the 'beautiful ad people' on TV all the time. You know, the people in the ads on the idiot box always featured models and the like, never the real citizen..….Now it seems just about every time I see an ad on the box it's got these butt ugly average Joe’s in it.
Geezzzz, I really didn't think they were listening when I made my snide off hand remarks.......still it's a reflection of the way were going........some of the most popular shows on TV feature 'people just like us' (well not like me 'cause I 'aint ugly 8^)
People just like us arguing, criticizing, yelling, fighting, even hurting ourselves all for that 15 minutes of fame and a chance at the big time and maybe a bundle of cash.
Where am I going with this??? Good question....As a marketer I've always been interested in.....marketing (Go Figure) especially WOM or referral.
To me it's the best form of advertising because as you can understand...it's FREE. ‘They told two friends, who told two friends and on and on......
Why don't the big companies spend more of their ad dollars on doing just this, instead of constantly trying to get more market share and ultimately driving away customers.
In fact most businesses spend all their advertising budget on getting new customers instead of selling to the one's who know and trust them. I must admit, more companies are slowly realizing that their existing clients are the best to market to…..although most have no idea how to ‘pamper’ them.
Imagine if all your existing customers told 3 people and those 3 people told 3 more….you’d never have to advertise again!!! Except of course to your existing list of customers.
On a related, but unrelated note……….
I saw the new Vanilla Coke ad on telly and thought, how stupid and greedy it was. Greedy because it shows that Coke want to dominate the whole soda market and stupid because it doesn't work.......
Here's why....in Al Ries book ‘ The 22 Immutable Laws Of Branding’ he talks about how companies especially the large one's constantly undermine their own brands, but trying to be everything to everyone.
McDonalds does this with their new taste menu, where they keep bringing out new food items to try and capture all the food markets. But all it seems to do is pump up sales in that segment of their menu and take away sales from their existing menu
Then they lose customers because BillyBob tried the shaker salad instead of the Big Mac, then McDonalds changed the menu again and BB went to Subway to find a shaker salad.
Same thing with Coke.....Coke drinkers try Vanilla Coke, don't like it and then can't face going back to Coke so go to Pepsi or something else.
Coke see profits rise in the VC market , but Coke sales flatten and they lose market share. These companies are trying to be everything to everyone and all they end up doing is driving away business.
So is the answer that we narrow our focus when we try to market to our targets?
Instead of starting a business fixing cars, should you just fix luxury cars or popular cars? A friend of mine did this in printing…….he used to print everything now he only does brochures. Profits are up and he can focus on one section of the market with one product.
Is there a section of your market that is most profitable and could you specialize? Take a look at your business and see what part of it is the most profitable maybe you could just focus on that.
It’s not a bad idea especially if that’s the part of your business that is the most profitable and/or enjoyable.
I think the biggest problem with this is that the small business owners think that they’re drive away business if they don’t do everything, kind of like the big guys are doing.
Anyway that’s enough for now…if you got this far, then post your comments, let’s discuss it so I can profit from your thoughts 8^) well at least you might state a very good case for ‘non-narrowing of focus’ (sounds like one of those technical ad company terms for ‘category killers’…nutz, there’s another one!!)
Jeff
P.S. I saw one of the most powerful images I’ve ever seen today. It was the helmet of one of the Astronauts…..lying burned and broken in a grass field……..truly tragic.
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