Creative Marketing: Thinking Outside of the Box

“As the marketplace continues to be more and more competitive, you need to be prepared to defend your market share and, if possible, grow that share.  To do this, you need to be creative and look beyond traditional marketing approaches and find new ways to interact with customers and prospects.”

• Increase distribution channels. Look beyond traditional sales channels to sell your products. For instance, if you sell farm seed, contract with local farm equipment dealers to market your product at discount to their customers. Ideally, make the other firm commit to an exclusive deal with you.

• Take on uncontested markets. Find niches that are large enough to represent a business opportunity but small enough to be of little or no interest to much larger leaders and followers. For example, an independent pharmacy may supply wheelchairs, walkers – products that the drug chains may not carry.

• Cut price over the short term. Go head-to-head against the competition with your product that does what their product offers, but, for a limited period, offer yours for less.

• Offer discount coupons. You don’t have to only distribute coupons in expensive print advertising or in big direct mail campaigns. Be selective. You can hand them out in your neighborhood or wherever potential customers gather, at trade shows or just about anyplace. Give a few to your best customers or include “next purchase” coupons in customer orders.

• Run contests. People love them. Develop a promotional contest that ties-in and/or relates to your products or services, make it fun, and really talk it up. If your contest has enough appeal you should alert the media for free coverage.

• Offer freebies. People love to receive something for free, even if they have to pay a premium price for a more expensive item to get the freebie. Today, printers or scanners are often given away with the purchase of a new computer. Ideally, the gift should be something you sell, so you get double marketing benefit.

• Offer frequent buyer programs. These build loyal clientele for both retail and service businesses. Most often, customers get a card that is marked after each purchase and results in a free or reduced price product or service after a specific number of regular-priced purchases. For instance, ten haircuts may net one free haircut.

• Offer exclusive access to new products and services. Offering your best customers the first chance to see and buy new merchandise is a great way to inspire a feeling of excitement as well as loyalty. To enhance participation, you might want to discount the product. If the exclusive offering is in itself attractive, keep the discount small.

• Host a special event. Have a celebrity, local official or noted expert on hand to meet current and prospective customers. Make it a charity fundraiser and you’ll build good will and may attract media coverage as well as benefit from introduction of your business to new clients.

• Cross-promote. You don’t have to be Disney or McDonalds to cross-promote your product with another business. Restaurants and theaters collaborate on “dinner and a show” packages.

PASS

• Exclusive marketing rights. Kendra nailed Magna's marketing strategy with a preemptive strike. She got the other park vendors to agree to an exclusive cross promotion of offering customer discounts. Kendra's strategy was to "cut off Net Worth at the knees." Who says that college-marketing courses don't pay off?
   

• High-performing team. On this task, Magna seems to have achieved the high-performance stage. They were focused on winning and collaborating in contrast to Net Worth that was watching their backs at every turn. Magna got right down to business, and everyone did what needed to get done collectively to win.

FAIL

• A leadership title does not equal respect. From Audrey about John: "He will respect me, and he will do as I say." Oh, really? Audrey apparently believed demanding respect would be enough to get it. Not so. Leaders must earn respect.
   

• Indecision. Audrey mistakenly thought leadership was pawning off responsibility on others. Even when her team asked her repeatedly to clarify direction, she refused to respond. Her attitude was: I delegated, you figure it out. Sorry, Audrey, but a leader's job isn't that easy. A leader must provide the vision, direction and order through their decision making for a team to be successful.
   

• Leadership includes emotional control. Leaders who are emotionally unstable are doomed to failure. As followers, we only trust leaders whose behaviors are predictable -- those we can count on to lead us out of a storm. Audrey was not that person. Her consistent style of emotional fits, swearing, yelling and storming out of rooms only made matters worse.
   

• Act like professionals. Some of the street-smart candidates have demonstrated questionable behaviors that simply aren't professional. We have heard them curse repeatedly and use street slang. Personal habits cannot be allowed to negatively impact professional behavior. This week, Chris chewed tobacco while dressed as a clown at the mini-golf course.
   

• Leave terms of endearment at home. John called Audrey "sweetie." I would love to be a fly on the wall when John calls Carolyn "sweetie" in the boardroom. Terms like "sweetie" and "hon" should be reserved for children and one's life partner at home. References to physical attributes -- including beauty -- have no place in today's workplace either.
   

• If a team is watching their backs, they can't focus on what's in front of them. John, who has demonstrated strong leadership, spent a significant portion of his time and energy watching his back rather than trying to help the team win. Audrey as the leader failed to inspire or direct his focus on the win. Instead, she motivated him to concentrate on getting her fired.
   

• Don't allow your emotions to impact your professional behavior. John let his emotions to enter into the fray after Audrey cursed at him. He allowed this challenge to his personal authority to cloud his judgments and performance.

The Report Card

Net Worth: Effort -- Performance -- Creativity --   D+ D D	WEEK SEVEN BOOK SMARTS Magna STREET SMARTS Net Worth
Magna: Effort -- Performance -- Creativity --   A B B-