In his recent article in Markeing News, author Bob Donath suggests that in B:B marketing we may be able to create a competitive advantage by trimming the number of options we give to customers. He adds a caveat that it isn't only trimming the options, but a corresponding trimming of the cost to the customer, thus creating a lowest-price offering.

Referred to as "right-sizing value and price" or 'naked solutions" this approach is based on the assumption that customers place a higher value on low cost over options -- at least in a B:B environment. I wonder if this same gambit is true in the B:C environment.

WalMart, Costco, and other big box mega retailers have all placed their bets that low cost outweighs a bevy of options. But then food chains like McDonalds, Taco Bell, and and Subway have all varied their menu to such an extent that they've adopted Burger King's mantra, "Your way, right away."

Is there a defining line to help marketers distinguish when options are an advantage, or where stripped-down, low cost is paramount? Doesn't stripping down options relegate every product or service to a commodity-level offering?

Posted by David Kinard at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Recently the good people at Go-To-Market Strategies published a review of the Mplanet 2006 exhibitor performance. They start by saying that there is no better place to learn tradeshow techniques than at a tradeshow by marketers for marketers. Unfortunately, their general evaluation of the exhibitor performance in two key areas was poor.

Positioning -- you know, that part of marketing that differentiates our products and services from our competitors -- well, they hit the nail on the head when their Lessons Learned report gave a less than average grade. I have to admit I was bored most of the time walking through the exhibit floor -- and I had money in my pocket and was looking to buy! There were less than a handful of exhibitors who were able to give me any reason why they were different, unique, special, or provided any type of advantage whatsoever.

Attraction -- that other key part which gets people's attention. Ugh. While I enjoyed spinning the wheel at Eloqua, practicing my bowling at GroupNet's booth with the new Nintendo Wii, and even getting my handwriting analyzed at Factiva, the majority of exhibitors failed to inspire, amaze, and wow. While the Go-To-Market report may criticize that floor traffic was painfully slow, I would say that this crowd was the most targeted group the exhibitors could have found...and for the most part, if their booth wasn't successful, they can only blame themselves.

As marketers, we should know better than to show up to a conference with nearly 1000 of our peers and do anything less than a stellar job. This was a chance to shine, stand out, and do all the things we read about and talk about... But with a performance such as what I saw, no wonder marketers have a hard time being seen as a profit and investment center since many exhibitors sat at their booths working on their laptops, or just seemed bored. C'mon people...we can do better!

Posted by David Kinard at 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In today's show with Rod Irwin, sales manager at InfoUSA, we talked about the role of direct marketing in today's competitive landscape. Rogers and Peppers have written about the importantce of one-to-one marketing, but until these past few years, I haven't thought it truly possible. With today's advancements in direct marketing which include variable print, personalized URLs (PURLS), and the advancements in data mining, it really seems like marketers should be able to customize every message to each individual target. And I emphasize the word SHOULD. Rod pointed out in the program today that he felt the number one challenge facing marketers is their inability to strategically think about their direct marketing. According to him, we don't do a very good job of personalizing and customizing the message. Sounds like we still have some work to do.

Posted by David Kinard at 12:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)