Mistake # 78: Market via direct mail only

Those were the days. Back in the 70s, 80, and early 90s, you could mail catalogs and marketing pieces to your hearts content, sit on your hands, and watch the returns come in. Oddly enough, several of my clients who are high volume marketers, until recently, were still using this model. They just couldn’t figure out how to readjust their marketing strategy. Honestly! As if they didn’t see the signs about nine years ago!

Certainly, we may see the USPS gone by then. The post office has almost put itself out of business by setting postal compliance with NCOA (National Change of Address), and other Move Update requirements. Now,  postal workers may be going to a five-day delivery with fear of losing more than $6 billion in revenues.

But what will marketing look like in the future? Francis Anderson’s blog, Making a Connection, claims marketing may hit a wall by 2020, indicating that marketers will need to compete for a much smaller share of a large market. Tim Ferriss, author of the 4-Hour Work Week, advocates marketing your products and services to a very narrow and niche market. Both Anderson and Ferris could be considered true visionaries!

What caught my eye this week was the NY Times article on the growth of marketers moving into statistics. Moving into Web 2.0 and the digital world, companies are now turning to statisticians for turning their data into meaningful information to chew on, then move forward with products and services.

I don’t have any profound assumptions or answers to this movement. All I know is that I’m going out in about ten minutes to buy a lottery ticket!

Mistake # 77: Keep it complex and accomplish losing market share

It’s been evident after the release of iPod and iPhone that Apple is stealing more market share away from Microsoft. It’s been reported last week that Microsoft has just closed one of the worst quarters in its history.  

Apple, led by Steve Jobs, shaved off most of the complexity and made things much more simple by focusing on cell phone and MP3 space, in addition to their PCs. Microsoft can’t handle the competition. It is still too complex and cannot retain a focus. And, clearly Microsoft is unable to meet Apple’s match on cell phone or MP3 products.

Google is also struggling. The economy, yes, has much to do with it since people and businesses overall are still holding back on spending.

Google, too, is focusing on too much, creating many divisions within the corporation by taking on libraries, maps, utilities, and other off-shoots that are making Microsoft look like a simple cookie jar.

So, as an iPhone user, Mac lover, and Apple advocate, I promote being just like Apple. Keep it simple, stupid! Stay good at the core of what you do, do it well, perfect it, and market it well.

As for Google, well… I still use Yahoo!

Stay focused!

Mistake # 76: Make it difficult

Seth Godin wrote in his blog about the reason why riding a unicycle is difficult. Not one, including me, likes to fail. It’s too hard, actually. It also requires mental preparation and focus. He advocates creating non-unicycle moments for your customers related to the products and services you offer.

It sounds so simple. But how often do we sell these to our customers without any sense of the customers’ perceptions? Is it too hard to grasp? The moment your product or service fails – just once – you are dead in the water.

It could also go the other direction, and be too good to be true! How do you create the balance between unicycle and non-unicycle products and services for your customer?

Mistake # 71: Give customers a reason to complain

There’s always one in the crowd. Some people will complain just to complain. Some customers whine and will not let up until you cry uncle. Others will wallow quietly in their misery on something your company did, how your products failed, or how their expectations weren’t met.

For example, in a customer complaint letter to a company that produces feminine products, she was horrified when she say on her maxi-pad was printed on the adhesive backing: “Have a Happy Period.”

She ends her letter with:

Sir, please inform your Accounting Department that, effective immediately, there will be an $8 drop in monthly profits, for I have chosen to take my maxi-pad business elsewhere. And though I will certainly miss your Flex-Wings, I will not for one minute miss your brand of condescending bull ****. And that’s a promise I will keep. Always.

I applaud her for her charm, her wit, and her journalism. I wonder what the company did in reaction to this, particularly since it was PC Magazine’s 2007 editors’ choice for best web mail-award-winning letter.

 I think I have dealt with customers that continually strive for that award…

Mistake # 57: Don’t pull a Coke Classic mistake!

This dates me to talk about this, but I remember 24 years ago when Coke came out with a new Coke. This introduction to the new Coke was one of the most outrageous marketing mistakes in business history. In 1985, Coca-Cola made a different, and sweeter, formula, replacing the original Coke. They spent years researching and conducting taste tests with Coke drinkers who said, yes, they liked the new Coke. But, what Coca-Cola failed to determine was, how would Coke-lovers feel if it were replaced with the original Coke. Coke put the “New” Coke on the store shelves, yanking the original “Classic” Coke.

 

There were thousands of calls daily into Coca-Cola headquarters, people running out and hoarding stashes of the original version, and thousands of others boycotting the company altogether. Many thought the entire marketing ploy was staged, due to the extensive press coverage, as well as the surge of buying Coke Classic.

 

Now that there is no “new” Coke, and that a generation now knows that the Coke you buy is truly the original Classic Coke, Coca-Cola is taking Classic off the product label.

 

I don’t think any one marketer could have planned and pulled off such a highly-rated marketing plan. It truly was a classic mistake! 

  

Mistake # 48: Ignore your marketing department

Marketing is hard. It’s just plain hard. Sometimes it’s viewed as “fluff.” Sometimes as immeasurable. Sometimes it’s viewed as dopey. Sometimes cheesy. The list goes on.

 

Fast Company has posted the Ten Best Marketing Stunts. My favorite, is Nathan’s Doc-Approved hot dogs. The fact that Feltman’s (and his competitor) is no longer in business, says everything.

 

What was your best marketing stunt? If you don’t have one, should you?

Mistake #34: Forget to talk to sales people!

The Gap. No matter what age, everyone wears jeans and T-shirts. Hell, even my 80-year-old father does! But, why can’t he go into Gap to buy jeans and T-shirts? When I walk into the Gap, I feel like I need a cane and a shawl with me from the look of the 18-to-24-year olds who infiltrate the store. So where in the world do the likes of us baby-boomers find stuff like that?

  

Just like Starbucks, The Gap claims that it grew too fast and ‘lost its way’. It now is redirecting its product development to go ‘back to basics’. Smart. But will it work? Along with losing your way, you lose customers. You lose consumer confidence. You lose revenue.

 

One assignment for all product developers/designers of Gap: go into the stores and talk to the sales people. What a novel idea! It is so prevalent in just about every industry that companies create an “ivory tower” approach to rolling out products.  The one thing they leave out is talking to the sales staff to ask what they hear, what they experience, what the customers are telling them. Even the most anecdotal information brings on a need for change, or going ‘back to basics.’

 

It’s all so simple.

 

Go talk to your sales people. Talk to them daily, weekly, monthly. What are your customers telling you?

Mistake #27: Don’t maintain a full and active list of prospects

Do you dial for dollars?  If you do, do you dial for dollars from your full and active list of prospects? There is a difference. If you don’t have a steady flow of prospects in your pipeline, then you need to evaluate your sales model.

 

But do sales people like to prospect? Even sales people do not like to cold call leads, unless they are qualified.  R&R Business Development Blog gives Action Steps in order to focus on prospecting. The real challenge in businesses is to keep the prospect interested.

 

It might not be the correct timing for the prospect to purchase – and establishing a relationship with the prospect allows the salesperson to stay in contact until the opportunity can become a sale.

 

Mistake #20: Only distributors know your customers

Do you use distributors to gain sales? If you do, how much do you know about your customers? When do your customers purchase? Who purchases? Why do they purchase? When working with distributors, it is very hard to find this information out. Why? Because distributors own your customers – not you.

Read more from B2B International and The When & How of Using Distributors.

Mistake #5: Ignore market conditions

If you’re not from Maine, you probably are not aware on how our home grown giant retailer, LL Bean, was among other major distributor of catalogs, (or magazine publishers, like Hearst), to do business with paper suppliers who only practice sustainable environmental practices, rather than deforestation. It creates a domino effect on the paper suppliers. LL Bean made a smart move.