Gimmicks Don't WorkWritten by Michele Borowsky
Recently in my local daily newspaper here in Phoenix, The Arizona Republic, there was an ad for an advertiser that I had never seen before. Well, either it was newspaper account executive or business owner, or maybe even both, who thought it would be totally clever and eye catching to print ad in paper upside down. So far I’ve seen it twice and let me tell you, it’s stupid. Your job as a business owner and advertiser is to make responding to your message as easy as possible for consumer. By printing it upside down, this advertiser has only succeeded in making it more difficult for potential consumer to read darn thing. But somebody thought that this was a totally clever “gimmick” to attract attention. There are all kinds of gimmicks that you see everyday. If a gimmick actually works, it will only be successful for a very short period of time. Your goal as a business owner is to develop and maintain long term devoted clientele, not a spur of moment responder who is not responding to actual message of your company, but to gimmick. I run across potential new clients everyday who say to me “Do you have any good ideas?” What this actually means is “I’m desperate and need a quick fix for my company.” Don’t fall into this trap. There is no get rich quick scheme or gimmick that is going to bring you all business you’ll ever need.
| | Financial Services Marketing Insights: A Marketing CompassWritten by Jay Nagdeman
What we now call “marketing” began long before name was coined. In mid-1800s, traveling salesmen dressed “snake oil" and other tonics in fancy packaging and extolled their virtues to a gullible public. New marketing applications soon proliferated in belief that marketing could make many new things possible in virtually any business situation. For more than a century, implementation, experience and ultimately strategy have helped marketing evolve from crude beginnings into today’s sophisticated practices. Consumer product firms have been pioneers in marketing field and have taken undisputed lead as creators of marketing’s best practices. While sophisticated marketing techniques have spawned consumer giants, most financial services firms had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into era of sophisticated marketing. The Advancing State of Financial Services Marketing Financial services marketing has, however, evolved rapidly over last decade. As a result, very nature of marketing function in financial services firms is undergoing a dramatic modification as more attention is paid to marketing-driven processes that impact entire firm. Our observations suggest that more progressive financial services organizations are currently going through an intellectual and practical transition that is forcing reexamination of role of marketing within their firms. Many have begun to realize that financial marketing responsibilities include not only developing firm’s mission statement and key messages, but also defining its business focus, relevant differentiation, competitive advantages and value proposition. At same time, however, a number of financial services marketing directors must engage in long-term turf battles with other departments before they can implement worthy financial marketing initiatives that will help accelerate achievement of corporate goals. In many financial organizations, persistent problem of differentiating financial marketing from sales still remains largely unresolved. In addition, some financial services marketing directors must still enlist substantial management support just to maintain equilibrium and obtain opportunity to accomplish even limited objectives.
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