Let’s blame the advertising….
February 9, 2007
A few weeks ago on a Thursday night, my youngest came in and announced that he had broken a tooth. To say I was alarmed would be an understatement. We’re a household of relatively few problems in the dental realm, but since my son wasn’t in any pain, I decided the matter could wait until the morning.
The next morning, I went to the mail box and was thrilled to see a brochure from a dentist. Since it was Friday, I knew our regular dentist wasn’t open and decided that this might be the opportunity to switch to a new dentist.
The brochure was exceptionally well crafted. It was a work of art…. literally. The colors, the copy, the image all combined to create a MASTERPIECE of persuasion. I picked up the phone and dialed the number. A woman answers the phone.
“I’d like to schedule an appointment for my son,” I said.
“This is their answering service. They’re not in today,” was the reply.
WHAT KIND OF BUSINESS OWNER SCHEDULES A DIRECT MAIL PIECE TO BE DELIVERED ON THE DAY THE OFFICE IS CLOSED?
The woman who answered the phone didn’t take my name and she didn’t take my number and by the time Monday morning rolled around, the baby tooth which had broken had fallen out without incident. Today, just a few weeks later, I can’t even tell you what the dentist’s name is who sent the brochure.
What really, really stinks is that the poor dentist doesn’t have any idea how well his brochure worked. It ALMOST netted him five new patients that Friday morning…. but he doesn’t work on Fridays.
So when it comes to tally the results of that marketing piece, I’m sure that there will be much moaning and finger groaning. After all, the piece hit mail boxes on either Thursday, Friday or Saturday. If someone got home on Thursday night, chances are SLIM of them hanging on to the brochure until Monday morning rolled around.
If the phone rang off the hook all day Friday, that dentist will never know. Even if he is informed, since the answering service didn’t take down caller information, there’s no way for the dentist to capitalize upon the response his advertising piece generated.
The best marketing campaign in the world can’t overcome the obstacle of who you have answering the phone. If the woman who answers your phone isn’t able to convert callers into appointments, it doesn’t matter how good your marketing is, your advertising or marketing will never act to grow your business.
Even if I was the only caller on that Friday, my phone call represented 5 new patients for his practice. Our initial visit would probably have covered his mailing costs, if not a portion of the production costs. Over the next few years, the business my family alone would have brought could have made that a worthwhile investment.
The dentist took a one time shot in the dark that connected… but he’ll never know. Even if it netted him 10 other new patients, he lost at least five by not having a system in place to follow up on his leads.
Yeah, it would have taken some effort not only on his part, but also on the part of his staff, however the payoff could have been, should have been huge.
Is it poor advertising or is the product to blame?
January 10, 2007
Once again, advertising is being blamed for poor product design.
According to Tech Dirt, Microsoft began the first quarter generating buzz for their new Ultra Mobile PC. Veiling their product behind the veil of “Microsoft Origami Project”, Microsoft successfully generated great “buzz,” that is until they revealed the product. Now, Microsoft is blaming poor marketing on the failure of the product.
Turns out, the product didn’t live up to the promised hype. It was more expensive that originally promised and sported fewer features. Sound familiar? (Think Q4 Sony Playstation 3 product launch)
Instead of stepping back and looking at the product, looking at it from a CONSUMERS point of view, Microsoft has decided to blame the marketing department.
Let’s see, it’s an ultra mini tablet PC whose claim to fame is that it runs Windows XP applications. Did someone create a Windows XP fan club and forget to tell me about it?
According to Carlo at Tech Dirt:
The only advantage he [the author of the article touting the UMPC as a great product with botched marketing] can cite over a PDA or smartphone is a larger screen and the ability to run Windows XP, which gets to the heart of the “problem” with the UMPC: does it offer features that many people really care about?
Between smartphones and laptops, the mobile computing market is fairly well covered, with niche devices like portable video players filling things out. Throw in other attractive UMPC features like a short, two- to three-hour battery life and a high price tag, and it’s clear that the problem isn’t marketing; it’s that the UMPC simply isn’t very attractive to a wide group of consumers.
What a concept; creating a product that appeals to the wants and needs of consumers. I forgot that this is Microsoft we’re talking about. However, for those of us who don’t have such deep pockets, we need to stay intensely focused upon providing products/services that solve problems for consumers.
