A Quick Lesson in Marketing
Thursday, November 25, 2004
Many people find it odd how obsessed I am with infomercials and the shopping channel. Infact, even I find it somewhat disturbing how excited I am if there is a new infomercial on that I haven't seen. I think it comes from being a business student. I am a business student at heart. In university, Commerce was where I belonged.
So there is a lot to be learned from watching an infomercial, especially the master Ron Popeil. Yes this is the man who has brought us the food dehydrator, rotisserie oven, hair spray for the bald man and his most recent endeavor into kitchen knives. It's amazing the simple but effective marketing principles one can learn from watching one of Ron's commercials. Today I have analyzed Ron's Kitchen Knife infomercial:
- Product: It doesn't matter how crappy your product is if you know how to sell it.
- Price: (first he tells what each knife would cost separately, then he breaks it down into installments three easy payments of $19.99 the customer never sees the product's entire actual price, only what it should cost over $300.00
- Word of Mouth Advertising: "If you promise to tell one friend about our knives we'll throw in the mini citrus juicer". Word of mouth advertising is very powerful because it's free, exponential and it comes from a trusted source
- Testimonials: The crowd is asked how they feel about the product. Everyone loves the knives of course (we are in a controlled environment). Testimonials are one of the easiest, inexpensive and effective selling tools you can use to market your product.
- USP: Unique selling proposition this is the one thing your product offers that makes it stand out amongst the competition. This could involve giving something away for free ie: the extra steak knives for incase you have more than 4 guests over for dinner, the extra boning knife, the two chef's knives, the filet knife etc... etc... etc...
Here is how just a few of these principles can apply to our travel business.
Word of Mouth Advertising: This involves letting our friends know what we offer and is something as easy as sending a personalized email to our address book.
Testimonials: We already have a few close friends or parents who have traveled with us. It's easy to get them to say a quick testimonial to put on our web site.
UPS: our premier members club it's free and the benefits speak for themselves access to group rates without being a part of a group, last minute club, monthly newsletter, coupons, discounts and great deals. We are also looking to create free planning kits as giveaways (destination wedding planning, school trip planner etc).
posted by aforward @ 1:09 PM,
