Website Help Needed aka Chris Denham Business Masterclass

[babyben]

Admit it, when you get a leaflet through the door for a pizza place, what do you do? Jump around with excitement?

Yes. And then I pin it onto the notice board in the hallway along with other vital leaflets which I find useful.

If a new pizza restaurant / pub / club etc. opens and we get a leaflet, then the chances are I'm going to go along to see what it's like.

If those places didn't advertise their new services, then I wouldn't find out about them. I don't read a newspaper and I don't waste my time looking at local notice boards, so leaflets and mailshots are one of the main forms of advertising I receive.

Exactly what Jamez says, if I want a takeaway I go for the menus that have appeared through my door.. if I ain't got a menu.. I ain't got a fonenumber and I ain't looking through the phonebook for one

Edit: Of course then it would depends if it was a freefone number or an 0870 *evil snigger*

[cdd]

Admit it, when you get a leaflet through the door for a pizza place, what do you do? Jump around with excitement?

Yes. And then I pin it onto the notice board in the hallway along with other vital leaflets which I find useful.

If a new pizza restaurant / pub / club etc. opens and we get a leaflet, then the chances are I'm going to go along to see what it's like.

It appears I've made the fatal error of judging other people's reactions to media on my own. It surprises me to say it but I assume I must, therefore, be in the minority when I immediately discard any active marketing media without any further consideration.

Despite my previous posts, I'm not "anti-marketing"; if I ran a business the first thing I'd do would be to find ways of reaching consumers. As stated before almost no products are "revolutionary" and the ones that are rapidly get copied by competitors. I know that sounds contradictory to my previous posts, but let me explain: from a consumer's point of view, I object to the incessant stuffing of "junk mail" through my letterbox, the spamming emails I receive, the tedious faxes which waste one's own paper. So much so, of course, that I do not even begin to consider any such media format. Indeed, I also feel that the extravagant marketing campaigns companies introduce (such as, for example, the various toothpastes which, in reality, have very little between them) are the sign of a market where no product shows any real superiority. However I simultaneously state that I do not object to such marketing; rather I feel that it is an unfortuante statement on how products are reinvented in this way. Its success is clearly evident, and even people like me who think that they don't consider any marketing campaigns are often drawn in. "Immoral" was certainly the wrong word to use, but it is difficult to think of a suitable alternative. My central point is only that today's market is dominated by products which are in essence reinventions of previous products. As far as 0800 numbers are concerned, JB is right that it is, of course, another factor which will send consumers "over the edge" to making the call and thus generating a sale.

I'm not entirely sure that anything that I've said DIRECTLY contradicts anything that anyone else has, but if like further clarification I'd be pleased to try to provide it!

[Mich]

Copy-cat products are fantastic, full stop. The competition and product innovation they bring is fantastic. With a single company in an entire market allows that company to abuse its power, by putting up prices etc. With a competing company they cannot do that, they have to compete for sales, they also have an incentive to keep costs down. Product innovation is also key, if only one company made mobile phones, they would introduce new features at a slower rate because they would be able to spend less on R&D and still maintain a market share; competition forces innovation. When a new product is developed it can be protected to stop immediate copies and to give the company an incentive to invest, however in time this expires to allow competition.

With all of this competition marketing is needed, not just to sell a particular product, but to establish and maintain a brand. Companies that have had poor marketing simply die out and history is full of them.

Unsolicited e-mail is certainly annoying but it can be ignored, the TPS, MPS and FPS can allow you to opt out of intrusive forms of marketing. Quite how billboards are intrusive I’ll leave you to decide. Advertising certainly permeates our daily lives and possibly to a greater extent than it should but this is inescapable.

Finally there is so much advertising because it works! Companies will only do something if it provides them with a return, and while not every single campaign will, the majority do. The examples you state are some of the biggest advertisers, you can't expect everybody to research something and make decisions upon features, because they don't.

[Pete]

I don't mind junk letters as much as it is not taking up either my time, bandwidth or paper. I flick through all things that come through my door and if something catches my eye I will read it more carefuklly, otherwise they go onto my recycling pile (I'm still waiting for the bins to arrive from the council)

[cdd]

Copy-cat products are fantastic, full stop. The competition and product innovation they bring is fantastic. With a single company in an entire market allows that company to abuse its power, by putting up prices etc. With a competing company they cannot do that, they have to compete for sales, they also have an incentive to keep costs down. Product innovation is also key, if only one company made mobile phones, they would introduce new features at a slower rate because they would be able to spend less on R&D and still maintain a market share; competition forces innovation. When a new product is developed it can be protected to stop immediate copies and to give the company an incentive to invest, however in time this expires to allow competition.

That's actually an extremely good point. By the way, how true is it that the government places stringent controls on monopolies? I heard at some point that they control their prices much the way that they punish companies' acting as a cartel.

I'm not entirely sure how planning permission was granted, but I now have the adorable view of a monthly-changing billboard from several windows (granted, t'was a brick wall before, but still!). Presently I'm learning about the unspeakable benefits of Colgate's newest brand of toothpaste. For some reason there are never actually any good ones placed up there, either -- Yes Car Credit at one point, Oracle somehow found its way up there at another (not "bad" per se, just odd -- something tells me they hadn't thought out their market placement quite well enough!), and, before the ban, countless ads for cigarettes, in particular the corny jokes sported by Lambert and his fawning Butler.

[Pete]

write to the BBC and ask them to turn it into a News 24 screen like they have at stations.