"We may now be approaching more than one million blogsites, according to the various collectors of metrics that publish yet more blogs to track them. While media logic says that a distributed connection to thousands of disparate interests trumps the fat end of the bell curve, the brakes may need a little gentle application.
In the '70s, the Compugraphic Corporation introduced a typesetting machine that used filmstrips to do in seconds what old-fashioned hot type took hours to accomplish. Our agency bought one and advertised our facility to set type in 108 Indo-European languages.
The fact that we didn't know 108 Indo-European languages or have need to communicate in more than two of them aside, we proudly promoted our technological advantage over the Luddites who still ordered type from outside foundries. We had rubber tires on our buckboard, and we drove happily into the '80s, feeling on top of our game.
The problem was not that we employed a new tactic that made doing a part of our jobs easier; it was that we confused the tactic with a strategic direction. Computer-set type did not change the fact that fewer and fewer people were reading anything, no matter how it got on paper. With every wave of new media, or applications that use it, comes confusion about its ability to impact thinking and therefore action.
A recent visitor was looking for help in marketing his product, a sea salt from Central America. "What's your viral strategy?" the prospective client asked. "And how are you going to deal with us in the blogosphere?"
Part of these questions sprung from this client's career-long involvement in the high-tech segment, but it is surprising how many clients are looking for a Fast Company solution to a slow-lane marketing challenge.
The strategy for sea salt, garden tractors, high-end charcoal grills or linen suits, as with so many other products, begins with distribution before moving on to differentiation and demand.
I emphasize considering distribution first in planning a new product launch or a reinvigoration of an existing brand. Are there already channels in existence that make sense for your product? Certainly finding them creates enormous savings over starting from scratch.
Several years ago, I was approached by a French manufacturer of bistro tables. The manufacturer wanted help in selling its product in the U.S. but had a thin budget and no distribution.
I took the product to Chuck Williams at Williams Sonoma, who immediately fell in love with it. He featured it in his catalog, and our client's only problem became keeping up with demand as orders flooded into the company. The client spent nothing on advertising, yet sales more than exceeded its wildest forecasts. The distribution component of the strategy had done its job.
Differentiation is harder, but equally necessary. In a world of too much information and too many products, what sets yours apart from every other thing like it can be the difference between marketing success and the discount bin.
I had the opportunity to help in differentiating Iams pet food, then a tiny company with only regional distribution.
The pet food buyers were almost always women. That's why 40-pound, 20-pound and 8-pound bags made more sense than the larger sizes competitors offered. The colors — striking purple, yellow, green and assorted other bright hues — enabled further differentiation as something different and strangely feminine.
The pricing was the key differentiator. Iams cost more to manufacture and had superior ingredients to other products on the market at the time, and the price showed it. Product literature and ads reflected that, saying, "Iams costs more and may not be the right product for just any dog." That was the key differentiation that made thousands of owners of ordinary dogs shout loudly that their animal was not "just any dog."
The final component I recommend before developing strategy is the elusive possibility of demand. Is the group of consumers who have the potential to buy your product large enough, or can it be made large enough to ensure marketing success? For me, that defines itself as a gross profit sufficient to cover all R&D, start-up, packaging and marketing costs and provide for a return on investment at least twice that of otherwise invested funds.
When a large manufacturer of farm equipment wanted to push 140-bushel creep feeders to beef farmers, demand was a major concern. Working with one of their largest customers, a farm co-op with more than 400 retail outlets, questions were asked about what would motivate farmers to buy one or two of these $2,500 rubber-tired mobile feeding trucks for every 100 or so cattle they raised.
The answer turned out to be credit. Advertising payment terms of "no money down and no payments for six months" in the co-op's newspaper inserts in eight Southern states did the trick. In no time, orders for several thousand of the big creeps were in hand.
All this without a viral strategy? And none of it in a blog? There are places for both. They can be used successfully by themselves or paired with more traditional techniques. The important thing to keep in mind, whether using ecommerce or selling from a gondola in a retail grocery, is that tactics by themselves don't make strategy.
Ron Jackson is the president and CEO of The Idea Farm, an international marketing, advertising and public relations organization based in Danville, Ky. Reach him at ron@theideafarm.net.
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