Welcome to March Marketing Madness! This week, all the blog posts will be about marketing. In fact, I have invited several marketing experts to guest blog! The guest bloggers are actively involved in marketing, come from different industries and live all over the country. You will be privy to their knowledge and unique perspectives. AND you will be able to ask them questions via the comments section in their posts!
To kick things off, here is a blog post from me called,
“Why Your Dog Drinks From The Toilet.”
Gross, I know. But stay with me, there is a business point.
Story #1 – Imagine a man who owns a bar. He decides to combine a marketing initiative with a good cause: have a benefit for the Ronald McDonald house. So he makes fliers and puts the fliers in a place where people are guaranteed to see them – inside of the restroom doors and above the sinks. Brilliant idea! He definitely has a captive audience. The bar patrons take the fliers with them. Fantastic right? Wrong. The bar owner becomes very upset. “Why do they keep taking the fliers? They aren’t supposed to take them, they are supposed to leave them there.” So the bar owner treads to restrooms and puts up more fliers. Again, the customers take the fliers off the wall and leave with them. The bar owner is puzzled and irritated. “What is wrong with these people? Why can’t they just leave the fliers on the wall?” What does the bar owner do? He puts up more fliers and on them writes, “Do not remove this flier. If you would like a flier, request one from the bar.” The fliers stayed on the walls and the big stack of extras behind the bar were not touched.
Story #2 – A friend of mine, “Rosie,” has no children, so her dog Charlie has become her furry child. She dotes on him, snuggles with him, grooms him and plays with him. Rosie wants to give her rescue the best life he can have. But Charlie had a problem. Every time the bathroom door was open, there he was, helping himself to water from the toilet. Being a neat freak and a germaphobe, Rosie had to get this under control and fast! No dog of hers was going to engage in this disgusting behavior. She thought, “Maybe his water bowl is too big.” So she got him a smaller bowl. It didn’t help. “Maybe the bright red color scares him.” So she got him a black bowl. Nope. No progress there. Frustration and panic set in. “Maybe the bowl needs to be elevated.” So she purchased a bowl stand. That didn’t work either. In the meantime (and much to Rosie’s horror) Charlie’s behavior got worse! Desperate to drink from the toilet, he figured out how to open the bathroom door. That did Rosie in. She finally went to the vet to see if Charlie was neurotic, having a PTSD reaction or if she would, gulp, have to deal with this the rest of Charlie’s life. This is what the vet told my friend: “Just like anything we humans eat or drink, what it is served in affects its taste. Coke tastes differently when it’s in a bottle versus a can. Draft beer tastes different from canned beer.” His advice to her was quite simple, “Buy him a porcelain bowl.”
There is a common element in both of these stories. Ready? They weren’t listening. The bar owner had a plan; he knew how he wanted the marketing process to work. His market was telling him they liked the event enough to take the fliers from the restrooms! That’s awesome! But he ignored them. Because they weren’t utilizing the fliers the way he wanted them to, he created a cumbersome system that lined up with his plan – which also yielded poor results.
My friend Rosie wasn’t listening either. As nasty as it sounds, her dog was telling her “I don’t like the way the water tastes in a plastic bowl. I much prefer the water in the porcelain toilet.” Yet she looked for every other possible solution except the obvious one.
So, are you listening? Have your customers asked for a service you don’t currently provide? Have they ever said, “I wish you would carry ____ brand of products?”
What is your market telling you they want? Are you listening? Or are you forcing them to drink from the toilet bowl?
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Although marketers are often told, “go where your audience is,” this post really put it in perspective and made me think by using examples that I can relate to – thanks!
Sharon, you are most welcome! I think we all find ourselves in situations where we ignore the obvious. Vigilance in hearing what our market tells us is important. So is having someone in your life who can help you see it. Thank you for your comment. Welcome to the Sanera blog family!
Sometimes we get so caught up in what “our” vision is that we become “deaf” to what our clients are actually wanting and needing! Great post Alicia! =)
Michelle, you described it perfectly! Thanks for commenting!