| |
| |
|
Marketing Information |
|
|
|
The Apprentice: 5 Lessons in Marketing
Donald Trump's hit reality show, The Apprentice is a godsend for marketers around the world. Why? Because all of the tasks that the prospective apprentice's go through each week and each season involves some sort of marketing skills. So, the Apprentice is a great media channel to show how important marketing is in everyday business and especially if you want to be successful in business. So, here are some fundamental lessons that we can all learn from the Apprentice: Lesson 1: Give the client what they want. In the first season of the show, the Girls team came up with a risque and provocative ad campaign compared to the Men's team which came up with something safe and conservative. The Girls team's advertising campaign won because they followed a fundamental rule of marketing: ask the client what they want and deliver it to them. The best way to get your client(s) to buy what you have to offer is to give them what they want. The men's team lost simply because they "guessed" what the client was looking for instead of spending the time to meet and ask questions of the client and deliver what the client wanted. Lesson 2: Sell and market what you know; and sell a product and service that you can truly stand behind In another task, the two teams had to choose an artist and help sell that artist's artwork. The winning team kept it simple and chose an artist who's work they liked. The losing team chose an artist who's work was rather controversial and which they didn't understand themselves. Ultimately, because the losing team didn't have any clue what the artwork was about and because they didn't even like the work themselves, they couldn't effectively sell it. If you have no confidence in your product or if you don't understand your product, you will have a tough time selling it to other people if you can't even sell yourself on the product. Customers can sense that you don't have any confidence in your product, once they sense that you may as well pack it in. Lesson 3: Find different ways to create new revenue streams from your existing business In the "Rickshaw task", the winning team knew that they could not solely rely on revenue streams simply from offering rides in a rickshaw. They diversified and made optimum use of their assets to create multiple revenue streams by also selling advertising space on the rickshaw. The revenue generated from selling the advertising space was what sealed the win. This way you mitigate your risks if one revenue stream is suddenly negatively affected you don't go broke. Lesson 4: Price it right In the 2nd season, the guys team won the QVC task because of price. The women lost simply because they overpriced. In another example, the men lost in the fashion design task again, because their pricing was simply out of whack with what the buyers were looking for. Price too low and you lose. Price too high and you lose. No one can give you a simple formula for getting the right price for your product or service so it's up to you test and choose the optimal price for your product or service. Lesson 5: 80/20 Pareto Principle Going back to the rickshaw task, how did the winning team manage to sell advertising in such a short period of time? They went straight to the businesses they already had relationships with. You have a higher chance of generating sales if you concentrate on selling and marketing and generating more revenue out of the clients and prospects you already have existing relationships with. The 80/20 Pareto principle. So, no matter what you think of Donald Trump and reality shows, there are lots of lessons to be learned from reality tv. Copyright © 2004. Ethan Hathaway. Wayne Po, is the Founder and Marketing Consultant of Ethan Hathaway (http://www.ethanhathaway.com): A virtual consultancy that helps small to medium sized B2B businesses increase their revenues through effective marketing communications.
MORE RESOURCES:
Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
The Use of Bar Code SMS in Mobile Marketing, Advertising, CRM Anybody that frequents shopping malls are familiar with the bar coding systems used by retailers to ease the line at the pay points. No more long lines at the till as the operator just pulls the product past the scanner and voila - the buyer pays and are on their way. 5 Reasons Your Marketing Communication is Falling Flat One of my associates sent me a promotional email she'd received. "I know this marketing communication doesn't work," she told me, "but why doesn't this make me want to buy?" I took a look, and what I saw was familiar and sad. Mortgage Broker Marketing - Sell Problems, Not Solutions Are your marketing messages to Realtors® guilty of these promises?- To render great customer service?- To close loans on time?- To offer the best competitive rates?- To help them make more money?- To deliver referrals or free leads?- To co-market services?- To qualify all buyers through a diversity of programs?Guess what?Realtors® have heard this before. So much so, that they've become immune to listening. Receiving a Brochure Printing Quote Brochures are a great way to get your message across. While having a brochure can be extremely useful, it is sometimes hard to know whether it is affordable. Fundraising: How To Avoid Three Common Mistakes I'm a board member of a local nonprofit and we are about to launch our annual campaign. Like other nonprofits in our community, we are facing a very competitive funding environment. Marketing Ideas Without Action Will Get You Nowhere! Marketing Ideas Without Action Get You NowhereYou want to grow your small business, but how do you do that? Many of the small businesses I work with are not really sure what works best, or how, or where to get started.We're all familiar with the term Marketing, but what in the heck is it really supposed to do for us?* Build brand awareness* Build name recognition* Increase market share* Get more clients* Generate referrals* Create more repeat businessMaybe you've tried some things in the past like brochures, yellow pages advertising, Chamber of Commerce networking but were disappointed with the results so you stopped doing them. Tips for Trade Show Rentals Trade show rentals allow you more flexibility and the opportunity to change your booth with every expo if you wish. You can rent nearly any booth components, from portable pop-ups to completely custom looks. How to Expand Your Target Markets Are your products or services geared towards only one target market? You can increase sales and profits by increasing your target markets. Below are some creative ways to increase your target markets by using your existing products and services you're selling right now. How to Protect Yourself Against the Hidden Cost of Shipping to Trade Shows Trade Shows are lots of work, but they can generate lots of new business for their participants. In addition to the expense of staffing your booth, food, lodging, display, travel, etc. Your Headlines Are Key To Your Success Or Failure. Do You Know What To Write? Most professional copywriters would say that headlinesaccount for 80% percent of more of the effectiveness of anad or sales letter.After all, it's the headline that gets your reader to stopand read further into your sales copy. For Market Breakthroughs, Put Timing on Your Side In today' s marketplace, the pressure for immediate bottom-line results forces many companies to give knee-jerkreactions to economic fluctuations. While this management style may produce some immediate short-term gains,it is self-sabotaging because it handicaps the development of creative inspiration, which is the cornerstone oflong-term marketability. Coupons that Work Turn a coupon into a business card (or vice versa).Coupons are seen everywhere; you clip them from the newspaper to save on groceries, you get them in the mail to save on brand name items, you even get packages in the form of booklets delivered to your door. The Key to Success Good business is about communication.. Marketing in Business and Commerce in the New Consciousness The point is what you give to another you give to yourself; the reason being that there is only one of us. You are apart part of the Universal life force just the same as your customer is. Trigger Button Marketing Sometimes, experiencing bleak sales is a matter of failing to find your prospective customers' trigger buttons.By trigger buttons, we mean anything that the customer would find of peculiar value. Benefits of Developing & Maintaining a Database A database is more than a simple list of names and addresses. What turns a list into a database is the additional information, coupled with your ability to select names from or report on the list using any combination of data elements. Spring Cleaning: How To Do It In Your Business To Make More Room For Success With the arrival of Spring, I decided to get outside and into my garden.I had neglected to do some basic maintenance during the previous months and wondered if my plants suffered any permanent damage as a result. Top Five 2004 Required Marketing Tips Needed to Succeed When marketing your practice, as well as designing yourbrochure, web site, business card, flier, advertisement, orother marketing effort, we recommend investing the time andeffort needed to effectively address all these tips. Notone of them can be omitted. 50 Benefits Of Joint Venture Marketing What Is A Joint Venture?A joint venture is an agreement in which two or morebusinesses work on a project for a set period of time.Joint ventures can be long-term, like promoting aproduct together, or some can be short-term, likebartering (trading) products and services. Finding Your Niche: What Do You Want To Be Known For? In my experience, there are two kinds of small business owners: one that knows whom their market niche is and utilize it, and another who tends to waiver or not want to "set in stone" their target market. With the latter group, I always probe for more information: Why don't you want to choose a specific target for your product/service? Time and time again, the response is the same "I don't want to limit my profits by only catering to a few.
|
| home | site map |
| © 2006 |
