Category: Marketing Insight

Consumer Promotions

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Consumer promotions simply don’t work anymore, they’re old world. Bribing your audience with the allure of a car or holiday won’t build your brand, rather damage it.

 They remind me of the kid with no friends who bought companionship because they had a motorbike or pony. There is a sense of desperation.  Occasionally someone will end up liking what’s really on offer (the person / the product), but more often, once the offer disappears so does the loyalty.Motorbike

If you’re thinking of running a consumer promotion on your start up, maybe you should think about improving your business model. Reinvest the money and time into your proposition. Something is wrong.

Single Minded Proposition – V 2.0

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

There’s nothing more powerful in marketing than this. It allows the other important things to happen. Like being remarkable, sexy, premium, eyeball worthy, first, functional or ‘the’.

There’s another reason it counts. It makes the un-fun part of a start up easier. The administration. It’s far easier to do all the non audience stuff when you only do, make or sell one thing. Accounting, banking, inventory management, production, tax, supply chain, warehousing, distribution, invoicing et al… all become less arduous.

Then we can focus on the stuff that really matters.

Rainmaking

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

In the movie The pursuit of happiness, there’s a seen where the main character asks a successful Ferarri driving stock broker his secret. He replies with two things, “People and numbers”

 pursuit-of-happyness.jpg

 

What it doesn’t mention is the subtlety of this statement. It’s actually about numbers ‘of’ people. It’s the art of rainmaking.

The most important role in any start up is your ability to make rain. (read here sell). It can only be done by hitting the pavement and phone. Our technical and strategic brilliance will need to the back seat for a while. Especially in launch phase.

Success ratios aren’t nearly as important as the number of calls we make. The former improves when we focus on the latter. 

Problem or symptom?

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Climate change is regarded by many as the biggest problem facing the global community.  It’s an issue that is unlikely to be resolved any time soon due to the fact the climate change isn’t the problem. It’s actually the symptom. The problem is excessive consumption.

Shopping trolley

Everything we do (consume) happens to emit greenhouse gases. Driving, eating, buying, mining and buildings all consume energy and resources being manufactured, delivered and used.  Governments and corporations are unlikely to encourage reduced consumption because apparently, growth is good.

It’s no different with early stage business development. If you’ve got an issue make sure you focus on the problem, not the symptom, or you’re unlikely to solve it.

Eyeball Time

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Some things are just nice to look at. They demand eyeball time, so we investigate further.

sanpellegrino.jpg        

What does your website, bottle, office, church, uniform, gadget look like?

Priority List

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Some advice from the street. Love jobs can kill your start up.

Definition

Love Job : Engaging friends or colleagues to perform specific, crucial tasks which one would normally pay for.

Through our journey as entrepreneurs we’ve engaged the help of friends, colleagues, professionals. In this category fall tasks like legal advice, design, advertising. They’re always happy to help, but when it’s delivery time, they got caught up, their boss was on their back, their dog died…

They didn’t make time because they weren’t getting paid. We were low on their priority list. Love Jobs are part of entrepreneurship and bootstrapping. You should and will use them. But if something is vital and you can afford it, it might be best to pay for getting it done and meeting your timeline.

What Do You Stand For?

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Here’s a tail of two brands collaborting for mutual benefit harm?

McDonalds and the Heart Foundation ‘Tick’.

I won’t bore you with all the details suffice to say McDonalds Australia paid $330K a year for the privilege. Sure the Heart Foundation tick isn’t on the french fries, but does this enhance either brand or simply breed greater cynacism for both corporations?

It’s no different for start ups, you’re judged by who you dance with.