Noise v Message
One of the curious observations I had, when I was at Duracell as a salesperson was that every time our competitor, Energizer advertised on television, our sales went up significantly.
In the last couple of weeks, many of the companies I have come across could do well to remember this. You should always have a clear message which is also intelligent rather than generates lots of noise. This is particular true of many internet based businesses.
The key to a successful campaign is to get your distribution right. Companies like Unilever, Mars, Coke, Kellogg’s etc, can get good return on advertising investment because they have excellent distribution. If an advert makes you want to purchase one of their products the chances are if you live in a city, you are less than 300 meters from a store stocking the product.
Whenever Energizer advertised, they reminded people that they needed to buy batteries, or that they should stock up. However, as Duracell had won the battle for distribution, when the consumer went to the store, they would find only Duracell available.
I suffered the opposite problem when I worked for Fujifilm, we were playing second fiddle to Kodak and as an ‘impulse’ category, it did not make sense for convenience stores to stock both brands.
So, when a start up tells me of the very clever PR plan or marketing strategy that they have in place for their start up – I get very nervous, as I tend to ask questions about the distribution – which will ultimately determine the effectiveness of the marketing plan.
I always like asking people the difference between sales and marketing, and you are guaranteed to hear a lot of MBAesque answers. The best one I have ever heard (again from Duracell) is.
“A sales person’s job is to make sure the product is on the shelves, the marketing person’s job is to make sure it does not stay there”.
Are you getting your sales and marketing efforts the right way around?
