I just read a story about one of the sad marketing blunders groups make when they try to market in a vacuum.

By marketing in a vacuum, I mean one of two things:

1. Either putting together a marketing campaign or plan without first engaging your customer base to find out if you’re doing it right;
2. Or in this case, putting together a marketing plan without having everyone on board.

The story involved a very small town in North Dakota that began advertising free land and a cash bonus to move there. It was put together by a group of local citizens (my guess they were probably local government and business owners). Since the town actually had nothing to offer but land and cash, the offer was only taken up by one family.

Two major problems arose:

First, the family moved from Miami to North Dakota and the inevitable culture shockset in. Because the town was so small and the community was so tiny and cliquey, the family were shunned by the locals.

Second, the new family opened a small business in town and a local competitor literally threatened them and their family. Including driving past their house at night and screaming threats and obscenities at them.

Needless to say, the family is leaving town and going back to Miami. The program died on the vine.

So what’s the marketing flop lessen here for business?

Do not make a marketing plan that involves everyone in the company or involves a certain group within the company without making sure they are all on board, all prepared, properly trained and the equipment is upgraded to meet the requirements.

A great example would be a company where someone in the C group decides that the company is going to make a big push to become known as the service friendly business. It’s all about friendly and helpful customer service. So they start a big advertising and marketing campaign. And people take them at their word and start using the new customer service pages of the website and calling the customer service lines.

So the server crashes so all the people who come to the website get 404 errors and the surly customer service reps who have more work for the same pay using antiquated systems frustrate the callers.

I’ll give you a quick real world example.

Remember Howard Johnson’s Hotels? Probably not if you’re under 40. They were struggling in the 70′s. The owner decided to streamline operations and cut costs by running the business with fewer employees and serving cheaper food. All this cost cutting made the hotels miserable places to stay. And drove away the few loyal customers they had left.

So then management got it in their heads that they would have a big marketing campaign to get bodies in the doors. And the advertising campaign worked. The marketing firm did their job and drove hundreds of new customers to the hotels. Which hastened the death of the chain.

Why?

Because hundreds of new people discovered what a horrible hotel chain it was and word of mouth did the rest. To the point where they had to sell what was left of the chain.

Moral of the story?

When you think of your marketing plan, think of more than just getting bodies in the door. Because what you do with them when you get them in will determine whether they ever come back.

If you want to talk to a marketing professional who knows how to create a real marketing plan, I suggest you call or email Barbara Mednick of BKM Consulting at 651-486-7007.

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• Will Your Brand Survive the Culture Shock and Thrive on the Social Web? (successful-blog.com)
• Quality Ways of Branding Your Company Products(marketingonlineinternet.com)
• Living In A Small Town? Not As Good As You’d Think(neatorama.com)

HackingEthics

Originally posted 2010-02-16 15:47:42. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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