Strategies for Winning the Marketing Race

by Joel Sussman, president
Optimal Marketing Communications

Unfortunately for us marketers, the public is inundated, deluged, and bombarded, every day, with hundreds of ads, commercials, emails, and direct mail offers inviting them to buy, try, upgrade, sign on, act now, and order before midnight. The problem created by this daily assault on our senses is that we tend to tune out, ignore, or question the vast majority of the advertising messages we're all exposed to. As the result, two of  the most formidable challenges to successfully marketing -- both on and off the Internet -- has become grabbing the attention of prospects and convincing them that they have a lot to gain and nothing to lose.

How do you gain entry into people's awareness when they're automatically filtering out probably 95% of the marketing messages they're barraged with? Well, one way is to "think outside the box". I wouldn't be using that hackneyed cliche if it wasn't for the fact that I recently had a pizza delivered to me in a blue box that consisted of an ad for Nivea® for Men skin products. The message on the top of the box says: "The good news? Your face isn't a pizza. The bad news? Your face isn't a pizza. (That means you can't order another one. So take care of it.)"  On five different surfaces of the box, there appeared the Nivea for Men logo and the slogan "More evolved skincare". The product's website address was also printed on top of the box.

I don't know if this is a new trend in advertising, or if it was a bold experiment by an innovative advertising agency -- but the bottom line is: It sure caught my attention and made this marketing message stand out and get noticed. If the same message was featured in a display ad, a newspaper insert, or a website popup ad, it wouldn't have had as much impact. Now don't get me wrong; I'm not suggesting that advertising on pizza boxes is the way for your business to achieve a marketing breakthrough. But I am saying that promoting your company differently than the competition and carving out a distinct identity in the marketplace is one of the key ingredients to creating a successful marketing formula. "Thinking outside of the box" (whether literally or figuratively) can help position your business as a frontrunner in the marketing race.

Don't Be an "Also Ran"

Seemingly unrelated question: "Why has George Carlin been a popular and successful comedian, author, and actor for the past 40 years or so?" Well, when asked in Time Magazine (3/29/04) why he doesn't do jokes about the President, he said, "I don't like easy targets, and I don't like sounding like everyone else." Perhaps the Hippy-Dippy Weatherman has distilled the essence of effective marketing and the necessity of having a Unique Selling Position.

Make Me Laugh (but not grimace)

I'm not in the market for a snowmobile or an ATV, but if I was, I'd have made a sharp turn off the road, this winter, and pulled into a parking lot of a store that displayed this banner in their front window: "Your Wife Called! She said it's O.K.!" Now if that's not an effective way to talk directly to a targeted audience, grab their attention, and make them laugh, then what is? That being said, it should be mentioned that the use of humor in advertising can easily backfire or just plain fall flat. So if you think you've come up with an award-winning slogan that's going to make people laugh AND motivate them to take a close look at your web site, your product line or service offerings, make sure to bounce it off a handful of people who will give you their honest, candid opinion about the concept before you run with it. When you use humor, exercise caution because there's always the intrinsic risk of being offensive, politically incorrect, tacky, or just plain lame.

So while marketing may not be rocket science, not everyone can make it fly. To generate results, it takes a lot of creativity, a certain amount of guts, and a firm understanding of who your audience is, what they want, and what might prevent them from getting it.

© 2004 Optimal Marketing Communications ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
About the author: Joel Sussman is a writer, newsletter editor, and marketing consultant. Get access to insightful articles, proven marketing tools, and downloadable manuals by visiting the homepage or article index of this website: "Marketing Survival Kit". And don't forget to request a free weekly subscription to the Marketing Survival Kit Newsletter.

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