Copyright 2013 Dennis S. Vogel All rights reserved.
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Note 1: For clarity, I've written 're-solve' to mean solve again compared to 'resolve' meaning to decide.
Note 2: There are paradoxes in marketing. Though what I write may seem confusing, if I don't include some paradoxes I wouldn't be giving nearly as much insight as you need for success. There are some paradoxes we'll never resolve or dissolve. We should just deal with reality as well as we can & help consumers deal with paradoxes in their lives.
You Can Procrastinate Later
In general, I dislike the notion of New Year's resolutions. If something is important enough to change, why wait? What's so magical about waiting until January? Waiting until January to make necessary changes just delays progress. Plus, waiting to implement a list of changes can make processes overwhelming.
It's best to avoid making too many changes simultaneously. Some people cause more problems by having a list of resolutions & trying to do too much too soon.
Sometimes we only have sufficient resources to mitigate situations, but not enough solve problems. If we delay action until we have enough resources to launch a solution, we could miss our chance to avoid more serious trouble. In other words, an important problem could become an urgent & important crisis.
Later, we may have enough resources (especially knowledge, wisdom, discernment, judgment, maturity, experience, etc.) to notice some things we didn't recognize (such as positive or negative factors & variables).
Appealing Or Appalling
Sometimes, marketers rush into promotions without considering whom they should focus on & which messages recipients (viewers &/or listeners) want.
Example: There are elements in video, audio & print that will appeal to or repel people. As you serve your niche, you may discover why you had a low response rate to promotion. You can determine if you should run an improved version of a previous promotion.
Your resources will be wasted if your headline/opening statement isn't focused on those who want what you offer.
Unless people see/hear what appeals to them, they may ignore or not notice your messages. It could be almost like trying to reach French men by shouting in English words "Hey, Ladies, I have something great for you." After your great offer for females, it could be counterproductive to add a blurb for men.
If men don't perceive anything that seems important to them in the beginning of your message, they may miss the blurb at the end. You may need versions of your messages to be in different languages & made to appeal to different subniches. People communicate differently, which also means they listen & read differently. Using multiple versions may cost more money, but may also increase your reach & sales volume.
Who Do You Think You're Talking To?
Analogy:
There's been a lot of controversy about private communications being gathered by governments. Computers & people can't attend to every message directed at or to them. Computers, used for screening messages, are programmed to find (respond to) specific subjects/words.
Like those computers, people are ready to receive what feels important. If your messages don't contain what they're ready to receive, it's almost like your messages don't exist for them. Like a book misplaced in a library, the best information in the world won't help anybody who doesn't have access.
Solve & Learn, When Necessary Apply What You Learned To Re-Solve Problems
If you couldn't solve a particular problem, you may've settled for mitigating it. When you review situations, you may solve (instead of just mitigate) problems or solve them again (re-solve). If the same or similar problem recurs, you may be able to apply what you've learned before. When you re-solve a problem, you may learn how to prevent it.
I often advise people to do their best to determine why projects worked or didn't. Even when a project is flawed, the failure to produce positive results may be due to one or a few factors. It may be impossible to determine every factor, but knowing some factors makes it easier to adjust. Re-solving problems may mean eliminating enough flaws to make a project successful.
Too often, what causes promotions to not work is: Promoting the wrong things.
When consumers believe competitors offer the same things (same or similar perceived quality levels) as you, you can: 1) expend resources trying to convince them your inventory is better; or 2) show them you offer a better experience.
Quality of experiences is a matter of consumers' perceptions. A few of the various factors affecting consumers' purchase & use experiences are:
1) Risk reversal; 2) Technical support (before, during & after purchases); 3) Lessons to teach them how to get full benefits from products; 4) Upgrades & updates
For a while, your niche may've had superior experiences because of your ways of solving their problems. Yet when competitors & consumers change, people's criteria of "superior" changes.
Things Change, So Should You
If you offer a lower level experience so you can reduce costs & prices, you may gain or keep some consumers, but lose others. Each time you adapt any offers, you may be changing competitors. Even if you make no changes, competitive fields can change because competitors & consumers change. Competitive changes affect the success of your promotions.
Even if you make no changes, your external situation still changes. So, in effect, you'll be in a different 'place'.
It's vital for you to track what competitors offer & how your niche perceives those offers. Example: Walmart experiments with upscale (supposedly higher quality) merchandise, yet consumers often don't perceive Walmart as a source for anything upscale.
Depending on particular product lines, you may successfully sell upscale products despite Walmart's efforts. Yet, Walmart keeps experimenting & is apt to become more successful - which may mean you'll be less successful. As Walmart tries to re-solve its problems, you need to know how successful those efforts are. You need to be aware of various options so you can change proactively instead of being forced to change reactively.
Your situation WILL change despite your proactivity, reactivity or lack of activity. You should be proactive so you can have more control/influence over what happens & how things affect you & your business.
To Get Ahead, Stick Your Neck Out!
By pulling in their tails, legs & heads, turtles protect themselves from some dangers. Yet wisdom reveals, as David Zahn wrote, "The only way for the turtle to move forward is to take the risk of sticking its neck out and deciding to chance that the potential danger is less than the benefit of being able to move ahead." (http://blog.ctnews.com/zahn/2010/04/19/time-for-the-turtles-to-stick-their-necks-out/)
In the terminology of some fictional characters, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, if you don't 'Kick Some Shell', somebody will probably kick your shell. Competitors might, in effect, kick you out of your shell. It's better to choose to expose a few parts than to let competitors expose all of your parts.
You may feel some comfort from doing the same things, yet that implies making the same old mistakes. Sometimes, you can learn new lessons by reviewing old mistakes. You may increase your success when you re-solve old problems. Yet, there's more to gain from new ventures & valuable lessons from new mistakes.
Refocusing & Resolution
You can get more benefit from your experiences by asking others for feedback. Their variety of insights & experiences may be what you need to get maximum results & they can learn valuable things in the process.
They can help you refocus so you get a different (possibly better) visual/mental resolution. You'll notice details that may've been present before, but you didn't have the specific discernment to notice the value.
Striking A Chord
A chord is basically a combination of sounds. Striking a chord refers to something people perceive that resonates with something in them.
Something used in music is moving from dissonant chord to consonant chord. Dissonant chords tend sound/feel tense. Consonant chords tend sound/feel pleasant.
Each day we experience some pleasantries & some problems that obscure or take away pleasantries. In effect, it's like the pleasant chords in our lives start becoming dissonant. We need to determine which note(s) to change so we can experience some pleasant "music" again.
It's a good analogy for what we do to help other people.
When their lives seem out of tune, they may need help (at least some guidance) to reestablish their rhythm & restore their melodies.
Be careful in evaluating what they consider to be 'music'.
Their favorite 'music' may seem like discordant noise to you. What matters to them is how they feel during an experience. They want a positive resonance to help them feel as they felt before or to have new feelings.
To help them, it's important understand their situations like they do. You don't have like their choices to try understanding why they make choices.
If you try to solve what YOU think are their problems, you'll probably cause more problems for them & yourself.
Even if a dentist is repulsed by somebody's teeth, s/he shouldn't pull or drill teeth unless there's a health problem.
Thank you for using my blog. Please let me know if I should clarify anything.
Copyright 2013 Dennis S. Vogel All rights reserved.
When you compete against big businesses with big budgets you need powerful marketing strategies & tactics. You'll find them here-
https://thriving-small-businesses.blogspot.com/
http://www.voy.com/31049/
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