MBA Geek

I came home today to find an some interesting advertising material from one of the leading car insurers in the UK. What caught my attention (which was probably as was intended) was the fact that ther advertising material had some interesting personal information used all over it. For example, a photo of a car in the marketing brochure had the same number plate as my car. The road sign next to what was supposed to be the street where I lived actually had our real street name on it. The photo on the outside had a set of keys with a tag with my name on them.

The interesting thing wasn’t quite so much the auto insurance, but the way it was presented. The personal information grabbed my attention and made sure I gave the brochure a second look. Interesting how marketing companies get more clever.

I was watching a snippet from Fox Business News on a company called www.salesconx.com which consists of a marketplace where companies can look for introductions and sales leads supplied by sales professionals all over the country. Here’s the video:

The company is described as “LinkedIn meets eBay” which is an interesting concept. Companies bid for the services of sales professionals who are independent agents, not employed by Salesconx.

It’s great seeing these new marketplaces emerge and providing a platform for synergy between a service industry and clients that could exist all around the country. It helps individuals and organisations focus on their core strengths and obtain additional services at competitive rates from a pool of available resource.

One to watch .. and maybe test out the trial.

Image by culture.culte via Flickr

Some jobs are easier than others, even if they are pretty similar. Take for example working on the sales team of a company that has a monopoly in a certain product. Marketing in this case is rather easy as it involves maintaining the image of the company and persuading people that the company is really serving them the best they can.

On the other hand there are the really tricky marketing roles. For example, take Pepsi, basking forever in Coca-cola’s limelight. Now that’s a hard job. Or selling diet pills on the Internet, which is a really competitive market. Alternatively, try selling polaris suspension parts in a country that doesn’t really practice off-road racing. The secret is always to focus on your product’s strengths and making sure you understand the competitive environment you need to operate in.

A lot has been written about how effective a proper marketing campaign can be; however the corollary of that is also very true. A botched advert can turn people away, negatively damage your brand and have long term repercussions on the life-cycle of your product. You tend to see companies taking evasive action from this sort of negative marketing when a celebrity has been disgraced and Marketing Advertising companies start pulling out their contracts. For example, Kate Moss lost an H&M deal a couple of years ago because the company did not want their brand associated with that person (this was following an alleged drug incident)

A poorly planned campaign can have just as damaging an effect and companies need to make sure they don’t end up under the spotlight for the wrong reason. It’s important to gauge the climate an advert will be launched into and take into consideration political, economic and social factors. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying you need to thread on eggshells. But one needs to be aware that any advertising campaign is not released into a vacuum but into a rich environment where supporters will rally behind a product and competitors will try and use your efforts against you.

Interesting topic huh?

An interesting question that came to mind today was whether it’s easier to market a product or a service. I was thinking that product benefits may be easier to articulate; but a service may be something that is easier to persuade a customer that they need. For example .. it isn’t too hard to persuade someone that they need life insurance and persuade them to get some life insurance quotes. At the same time, if someone needs to buy baby clothes, well, it’s a need that you have to fulfill, there’s no way to get around that.

I suppose it does depend on what sort of product or service you’re selling, but personally I would prefer to be pushing a product that people need .. than a service that no one really wants.

Readers of this blog will know I’m a great fan of Seth Godin, a marketing guru who has published numerous books and is also a world renowned speaker. I managed to find a video of a talk he gave at Google last year. It’s full of great ideas and excellent advice, so here it is for your viewing enjoyment:

Great huh?