What are some of the best approaches to improving marketing?
Not long ago, we were helping our son get ready for college and noticed a hefty section in his course catalog entitled “Topics in Sales and Marketing.” With that in mind, we humbly note that your question is bigger than the both of us. Marketing is an increasingly complex science of data-mining, number-slicing, and niche-segmenting.
But since you asked . . . we would only add that marketing always contains an element of art. Consider two great campaigns that ran in connection with the World Series. In the first, a Boston retailer, Jordan’s, promised to give away all the furniture it sold last April if the Red Sox won in October. The team did win—hallelujah!—and the company’s leaders have been on TV ever since, congratulating the 30,000 customers now getting refunds of $20 million. In the second, Taco Bell promised to give a taco to everyone in America if a base was stolen in the series. Young star Jacoby Ellsbury did the honors, and Taco Bell reaped millions in publicity from the happy stampede.
We’ll leave the sales and marketing advice to the experts, simply noting that, when all is said and done, a clever idea can still score big.
This question and answer originally appeared in Business Week magazine on December 03, 2007.
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