Mar
06
This is a guest post written by Mark Knowles from Mark Knowles.
What is marketing? Is it selling, or something else?
Seth Godin suggests that marketing is making a promise and keeping it. How often do you come across a broken promise in the world of marketing? Speaking from personal experience – ALL THE TIME !
Here’s an example - Getting your oil changed. The last time I had the oil changed in my car (in the US), I went to a national chain of oil change specialists who were marketing their services with an enormous banner offering “Oil changes - $29.99” I went in, told the guy behind the counter which car I had, asked him how much it would cost and was told $29.99. Fine. I took the car through, had the oil changed and was presented with a bill. For $42.
After much arguing, shouting and generally being pissed off, the manager was called to deal with me and agreed to charge me the promised $29.99.
This is breaking a promise. They promised to change my oil for $29.99 and then refused to do so. I eventually got what I wanted, but, I can tell you – I would never use “SpeeDee” ever again.
This one is a funny example – 25% off:
Unfortunately, it’s not really funny because it’s too true. It’s all too easy to break a marketing promise online. Many’s the time I have been directed to a web page because I entered a particular search term. But when I get there, it turns out that the company who owns the page are not offering whatever it was I was looking for. No – they had gone to the trouble of adding a bunch of tags to their page, doing a lot of keyword research and managed to fool the search engines that they had whatever it is I was looking for. And now I am there, they manage to fool my pop up blocker and advertise something completely different in the hope I will click on it so they can get their PPC pennies (or dollars in some cases) What’s the point? Andy suggests you should avoid keyword stuffing. This is another reason why.
I have said it before – 99% of the internet is garbage.
Are you adding to the garbage, or do you make a positive contribution?
Answers on a postcard or in the comment box please.
This is a guest post written by Mark Knowles from Mark Knowles.
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Yeah i must say, i totally agree with you Mark. I am an avid user of the internet and spend tens of hours online every week, and i must run into this issue at LEAST 3/4 times per week. Unfortunately for the company who are breaking the promises, they are having the opposite effect with me, and probably many others, because the minute a company breaks a promise with me, i head straight for the door!