MV newsletter - May 2006

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Recent research suggests that, while we all strive to become sub-editors in that search for the stand-out headline to get our e-newsletters read, our customers really prefer to open the ones with boring, factual Subject lines. So, forget "Oil to rise to $1m a barrel!", your clients are more interested in "Our newsletter, May 2006, volume 2, part B".

Either, how do you explain human nature, or how do you explain market research?

Actually, what the research is suggesting is that you have to be whizz-bang exciting to attract new customers, but starkly factual to keep them. As Theodore Levitt observed, getting the first contract is like courtship, building a long term relationship is like marriage.

And don't mention Marketing in the headline, whatever you do. Your spouse resents being marketed to.

Killer strategies

The real Hannibal, general of Carthage and scourge of the Romans, was about 1,000 times more horrible than Hannibal Lecter.

He may not have eaten people, but he certainly did a lot of impaling. Not exactly Sarbanes-Oxley.

However, he was a great military strategist. Equipped with a really tough, campaign-smart army, and elephants to trample on the enemy and fire up the imagination, he marched all the way through Spain, Southern France, and Northern Italy, conquering all before him, until he met his nemesis in Scipio, who just managed to save Rome.

Our advice: be selective, and check out the local regulations carefully before hiring any elephants.

The times, they are a-changing

The recent editions of the McKinsey Quarterly are banging the same drum: the world is getting much more competitive, and it is not enough to carry on as before.

Your strategies have to challenge you, and preferably the competition.

If you really love yourself, set them free

We have observed about one company we know that their customers are more expendable than their products.

It appears that they are far from alone. Despite recent criticism, the concept of the product life-cycle really seems to work, and eventually you enter an accelerating spiral of diminishing returns (although the Boston Consultancy Group argue that you can make good money being the last business that turns the light out).

We hang onto our failures, and we do not ditch our historical successes turned sour.

Lonely hearts

If you are looking for marketing resources in the UK, try here.

Hot dogs

Royal princes are big brands, witness the recent British Prince Charles diary confessions.

As the competition heats up, each story has to be marginally more outrageous than the last.

And our winner for this week is Prince Henrik of Denmark on spicy snacks and disappearing dachshunds.

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© 2006, Mud Valley ™ brand marketing community.

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