Archive for the ‘Sales & Service’ Category
A Discount Recovery
In the last two weeks of August, a muse article called “The Discount Dilemma” was the third most popular topic read by thousands of people who visited the Muse page on our Web site.
Discounting continues to be a topic of interest, especially as we are about to enter the busy 4th quarter retail season. What will drive holiday shopping? How much discounting can you expect as a consumer and will you do as a marketer?
Since I am on vacation this week, I thought it would be beneficial to take another look at “The Discount Dilemma.” So once again, as you look at price-cutting as an answer to slumping sales, or a way to gain a competitive edge over others in your market, consider the ways discounting can Read more »
Radical Change
Mention General Electric (GE) and the name that comes to mind most often is Jack Welch. Rarely, if ever, will you think of Lawrence Bossidy. Bossidy was a contemporary of Welch, but never garnered the same degree of fame. It was Bossidy, however, who guided the growth and success of GE’s financial division, GE Credit Corp. As the COO he doubled the assets to $16 billion in one five-year period.
Bossidy operated on the premise of, “Show me a great company and I’ll show you one that has radically changed itself and is looking forward to the opportunity of doing so again.” He embraced adaptability.
Adaptability should be at the core of your marketing strategy for 2010.
To be a leading brand in your market or product category will require Read more »
The Snake Oil Syndrome
In the 1800s, when marketing was very personal and done at the local level, itinerant purveyors of goods would travel from town to town, holding product demonstrations with promises of wondrous benefits to be had by using their wares. Frequently the hype far exceeded the results and the term “snake oil salesmen” came to mean quacks and frauds. “Snake oil” came to represent anything sold through exaggerated marketing claims.
It is now two centuries later and the method of snake oil marketing is alive and well. It has just been transferred from small towns to the global community of the Web. The media has changed, but the promises of greater wealth, health and beauty remain. However, the snake oil salesman is much more elusive in this global media than the fast-talking salesman who fast-tracked it out of town when customers got rowdy.
For those who sell products and services without exaggerated promises there should be concern about some of the marketing being practiced on the Web. Disillusioned Web customers will Read more »
The Irrational Consumer
There is a seduction scene in the Hitchcock movie North by Northwest with Eva Marie Saint and Cary Grant. Exactly who is seducing who depends on your point of view. It is during this scene when Saint whispers to Grant that as an advertising man, he gets people to buy things they don’t really need and do things they shouldn’t do.
Although Saint states it a little strongly, the fact is that advertising is about persuasion. The more persuasive the message the better the advertising works.
To be really persuasive requires an understanding of how we manage our emotions. The only place for logic in great advertising is to justify the emotional decision that’s already been made.
Nowhere is this explained so well and in so many different Read more »
Make Every Contact Count
A few years ago a retail company hired me to consult with them about why their advertising didn’t work. I first reviewed the amount of traffic in the store, the direct result of the advertising. It was healthy, indicating that the advertising did work in getting people to come shop. Upon further tracking, however, I found that only 7 out of every 100 people coming into the store made a purchase.
They had an astonishing 93% walkout rate!
It wasn’t the advertising that didn’t work. It was the employees who didn’t work.
The employees were ignoring the customers. When I delved into this problem with the employees their reason for the behavior seemed perfectly logical to them. The employees claimed Read more »
Power Words
The cover of the April 6 New Yorker is a funny look at what might be called advertising hucksterism at its most obvious. It’s the April Fool cover done by popular artist Roz Chast.
Chast’s combination of ad cartoons promise “Lottery Winning Secrets! This Could be You!”, “Finally: A Candy Bar that Burns 500 Calories as You Eat It!”, ‘”Vitamins That Make You Smarter!” and other enticements from investing to amazing sex to eternal youth.
Of course satisfaction is guaranteed or double your money back. That promise always boosts response. The words you use in Read more »
Low-Cost Ways to Boost Cash Flow
Feeling the pinch? Looking for ways to keep your brand alive and healthy during a sick economy?
To fight the blight of a tight market, it’s time to pull out guerrilla marketing strategies. With guerrilla marketing, instead of the big-budget, splashy ad campaigns you might use when cash is flowing, use stealth marketing to motivate consumers without looking like advertising as usual.
Quite simply, guerrilla techniques are the unconventional, innovative and imaginative approach for reaching customers in ways and places that are Read more »
The Discount Dilemma
As the competition and search for customers deepens, along with economic bad news, it becomes tempting to use price to entice customers into a buying mood.
Especially when discount brands seem to be the ones enjoying growth.
WalMart, with their every day low prices, saw a 9% sales growth in 2008 . Generic and private label brands now have nearly a fourth of the market while consumer brand sales slump, despite millions in advertising.
If you think that price-cutting is the answer to slumping sales, and you’re tempted to slash and cut your way into revenue growth, there are a few Read more »
Creating Your Best Competitive Advantage
In a recession economy, where the pool of people spending money is shrinking in size, it is more important than ever to have a competitive advantage in your market.
The consumers making purchases understand that they are extremely valuable. Therefore, their expectations of excellence in customer service actually increase as the economy worsens. One of the most effective ways to distinguish yourself is by the exceptional way you treat your customers.
Given the choice of two companies, with comparable price, quality, and product, the buyer will always choose to do business with the one that Read more »
Wants, Needs and Salesmanship
Junior Achievement has a program in its elementary curriculum that presents children with a series of things for which they must decide if having them is a want or a need. To watch seven-year-olds, whose ideas are mostly black and white, battle with a decision about whether a TV is a want or a need, is a very enlightening look into the sales process.
The humorist Will Rogers said, “Advertising is convincing people to spend money they don’t have on things they don’t need.” Take that one step further in the process and you’ll find that salesmanship is convincing people that they need the things they want. It is the convergence of wants and needs that provides the buyer with emotional fulfillment.
Making the sale is not the sole responsibility of the person who is expected to make the close. It happens through Read more »
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