Moving thoughts

I moved flat this week, just across town, so it wasn’t as much of a disruption, and it was to an area I was familiar with anyway, so there wasn’t so much learning ‘how to live here’ to do, but it made me think about what the upheaval of a move can teach us as marketers.

When you go somewhere new, whether it’s a holiday or a more permanent relocation, you need to get your bearings and develop some kind of routine. This presents a huge opportunity for businesses to market themselves at a point where your habits and preferences aren’t yet set. What’s the long term value (or short term, in the case of someone staying for a week) in being the go-to place for whatever it is.

Many customers are in unfamiliar territory, whether geographically or metaphorically in terms of product category. Are we as marketers really doing enough to help people? Isn’t the whole point of marketing to communicate what our products or services will do for the customer rather than it being the customer’s responsibility to work that out based on how great we tell the customer we are?

If your marketing is all about showing off your latest award, you’re doing it wrong.

Read the rest of this entry »