Lots of products and services in the marketplace are at best parity and more often are simply inferior. Too many marketers accept products as is and then leave it to the rest of us to “polish the turdâ€. Buff all you want, a stinker is a stinker.
We were invited to pitch a client earlier this year and did a little homework on them. Turns out they ranked lowest in their industry in customer satisfaction. Customers only stayed with them until they could find a better option. When we visited the client and told them our research findings they said to us “so you’re saying our baby is ugly?†We admitted as much and then offered a suggestion on how we could use marketing to help address their product problems. Since in our humble opinion, any other approach would be wasting their money. With a cost per customer acquisition of well over $300, we figured churn would ultimately kill their business. They said thanks but wanted a promotion right away that would lift sales–we wished them the best of luck. MFG is all about making the product/service better or at least addressing critical product/service weaknesses (like customer service).