| At a time when we all make resolutions in our personal lives to lose weight, quit smoking, read more books, and of course create more personal time, we seldom make “resolutions” in our business planning. We focus on our annual business plan or marketing plan. We set goals but we don’t make resolutions.
Well, here’s a resolution for your consideration. It comes right out of the book “Blue Ocean Strategy” I have previously referenced. It makes perfect sense and it’s simple.
“MAKE YOUR COMPETITION IRRELEVANT.”
Think about this for a minute. How can you set yourself apart from your competition? It can be done and many very successful brands have made it happen. It’s all about strategy, positioning, and perception. Blue Ocean Strategy authors W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne used cement, a bland and boring commodity product in Mexico, as one of many examples of getting consumers to change their perception of building an additional room on their house and watched their sales soar.
There is a corollary to this resolution that is equally important to making your competition irrelevant and that is TO MAKE YOUR CUSTOMERS MORE RELEVANT.
This week’s AH-ha! is that while you are trying to create a blue ocean away from your competition, close the gap between you and your customers. We’re talking about space – the winning plan is to create distance from your competitors while drawing your customers in toward your brand.
The Marketing Implications
Just like your mother used to tell you: “Do your homework.” That counsel still applies today. Know your brand, the competitive landscape, your customers, and all the pattern shifts impacting everything.
Your success in 2008 is going to depend on even more variables than you coped with last year. More media and marketing channels, more fragmentation, more distractions, and economic and political uncertainty are all going to impact your business.
I’m still bullish about 2008 and that’s because the strategy that always works is our Sixth Star initiative that is based on the simple premise of staying connected with customers and rewarding them for their on-going business. The Sixth Star allows you to execute both resolutions – make competition irrelevant and make customers more relevant.
A customer-centric brand strategy is more than just communications and rewards. It understands the complete dynamics of your customers through careful database analysis of demographics and sales while always promoting new research to gain additional INSIGHTS into the needs and expectations of customers.
Whatever marketing strategy you have in place now will be obsolete in a few months. Of course, that’s a very bold statement and it’s meant to be. Finding the balance between “full speed ahead” and “careful we don’t fall off the edge” is not easy. No one ever said marketing and sales is easy.
In last Friday’s USA TODAY business section, there was a lead article about how some fast food restaurants are migrating to text messaging as a new ordering channel. It’s a big deal in Europe and Asia but Americans have been slow to use this medium as they have with on-line ordering. However, the potential is huge, considering that Americans already send 30 BILLION text messages a month. Chains like Papa John’s, Domino’s, and Pizza Hut are all in some stage of testing or rolling out this service. Consumers have to recognize that once they text in an order, they give up something of value – their digits. Now the brand has a way to communicate back and they don’t need opt-in privileges. According to the article, Domino’s has captured 1 million cell phone numbers, to which it sends promotions once a month.
Our challenge is to determine if a strategy like text messaging is creating a blue ocean that will make competition irrelevant or whether it is drawing customers closer to the brand has to be evaluated. Is this a revolution waiting to happen or just another media in the mix?
Jeff DeGraff, business professor at the University of Michigan, believes the future for text messaging is huge and “Within five years, it will be as common as on-line orders.”
If your brand sales ended 2007 in a flat funk, if you are planning a new line extension to boost sales, or if you’re planning on new package designs and graphics to get a big sales boost, you may be in for a shock. If your media plan mirrors last year you may be in for a shock. If your focus is on your brand and not your customers get ready to be tasered. 2008 may be a shock for many of you as you bridge old tactics with new strategies.
As we herald in the New Year, it’s important to do some marketing soul searching. Gather your team and ask what personal resolutions they made for themselves and then develop some resolutions for your brand. If they don’t grasp the Sixth Star strategy and the idea of blue oceans, encourage them to do their homework. Their jobs may depend on it.
Have a great year.
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