Marketing
The Journey of a Product
Have you ever wondered how a product is created? Can you think of a product that was a big hit back in the day but not available now? Some say that a product has a life cycle like Mother Nature. A bird drops a seed on the ground; the seed starts to sprout; shoots out leaves and roots; the plant matures into a big tree and after years of stormy weather and sunny spring the tree dies.
In theory, it’s the same for a product. After a period of development, it is introduced or launched into the market (bird drops the seed on the ground); it gains more and more customers as it grows (shoots out leaves and roots); eventually the market stabilizes and the product becomes mature (little seed became a big tree); then after a period of time the product is overtaken by development and the introduction of superior competitors, it goes into decline and is eventually withdrawn (death of tree).
Product Life Cycle
To say that a product has a life cycle is to assert four things:
- That products have a limited life,
- product sales pass through distinct stages, each facing different challenges, opportunities, and problems to the seller,
- profit rise and fall at different stages of product life cycle, and
- products require different marketing, financial, manufacturing, purchasing, and human resource strategies in each life cycle stage.
However, you must remember that a product life cycle even under normal conditions, to all practical intents and purposes often do not exist. Dhalla & Yuspeh in 1976 criticizes the product life cycles states that:
…clearly, the PLC (Product Life Cycle) is a dependent variable which is determined by market actions; it is not an independent variable to which companies should adapt their marketing programs. Marketing management itself can alter the shape and duration of a brand’s life cycle.
So, the life cycle may be useful as a description, but not as a PREDICTOR; and usually should be firmly under the control of the marketer. The important point is that in many markets, that product or brand life cycle is significantly longer than the planning cycle of the organizations involved.
For more about the product life cycle visit: http://www.samcarrara.com/marketing/product-life-cycle-overview/
The Product Journey,
Samuel Carrara
Threadless Lesson
In the June issue of Inc. magazine I read a great article about Threadless. Simply they are a t-shirt company, but they are much more! They have t-shirt design contests, people vote on their favorites and only the good ones get produced.
This is Web 2.0, having your customers telling you what they will buy. You can win $2,500 for having your shirt design picked. Read the article in print (June 2008) or online while it’s still there at:
http://www.inc.com/magazine/20080601/the-customer-is-the-company.html
Then searching around I saw a great video interview with Jake Nickell and Jeffrey Kalmikoff from Threadless. Simple questions, simple answers but insightful. Watch the video at:
http://www.horsepigcow.com/2008/05/06/the-whuffie-factor-threadless-interview
What is the Marketing Lesson here?
- Ask your customer’s what they want, give it to them.
- Repeat!
Web 2.Shirt,
Sam Carrara
How To Solve The Airline Mess?
This may not be a popular or welcome post, but I feel I need to state some facts (or my opinion). How do you solve the Airline mess? RAISE PRICES on airline tickets.
Recent Problems
- American Airlines grounds 100 MD-80 twin jets on Wednesday April 9th, 2008 for immediate maintenance inspections. Each MD-80 can hold 100 passengers and this action cancels 1,094 flights.
- ATA, Aloha and Skybus Airlines closed for business last week. ATA may come back after a Chapter 11 bankruptcy due to financial problems, but it may take awhile. They have been in business since 1973. Aloha had been in business for 61 years and recently had to lower fares to compete with Mesa Air Group’s inter island passenger flights.
Why
- Rising jet fuel costs- You thought the $50 you spent at the gas pump filling your car was high. Imagine hundreds of gallons of fuel for each flight. Each cent increase of fuel costs is huge to the airline industry.
- Slowing economy- All over people are seeing the slow down and deciding to hold off on some purchases. Instead of taking a long distance trip, they will take a local one and save money. More companies are using teleconferences and webinars to get business done, rather than pay for the flights, hotels, meals and included costs of face to face communication.
Other Issues
- Workers pay- Month after month you see another part of the airline industry “in talks” or on strike to improve their compensation, be it dollars or benefits. The three main groups I see are Airline Pilots, Mechanics and Airline Attendants (the term keeps changing).
- Pension plans- Very closely related to pay, most of these plans are underfunded. How many plans need to be taken over by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). Do you know what money is used by PBGC to makeup the difference in funding for pension plans? Taxes!
These are just a few of the issues about Airline woes. Rising ticket prices would solve some of these problems. Although raising prices would decrease the number of people flying, I think in the long run it is needed. On the short term due to the price elasticity of demand for airline tickets will hurt for a little bit. (I can explain price elasticity of demand in another post.)
This is always a big marketing question that is often overlooked-
Am I charging to little for my product or service?
You don’t know unless you do some testing.
More posts to read about this Debacle:
http://timeshareownersblog.sellmytimesharenow.com/2008/04/10/how-airline-closings-effect-timeshare-vacations-and-timeshare-resales/
http://michelemiller.blogs.com/marketing_to_women/2008/04/i-am-a-dividend.html
http://www.freightdawg.com/2008/04/ata-bankruptcy.html
Check Your Prices,
Sam Carrara
My Six Figure Affiliate Check
I wanted to show you my six-figure affiliate income check from last month, but the following things prevented me from doing this:
- I forgot to pickup the mail
- My dog ate it (I don’t have a dog)
- My scanner isn’t working
- I can no longer upload pictures
- It’s a special day in April, being the 1st
Although I have not received this check yet… I plan to. I am taking action and working on multiple methods of traffic and improving my marketing to reach that point. That check and others will be mine by this time next year, without any April Fools jokes.
I’ll reveal a few of the methods I’ll use to accomplish this:
- Articles- Many sites want new content and will take your articles to build up their website size. In the last paragraph of your article your have a resource box that talks a little about you and a link to get more information on the topic. The link will point to a lead generation page, an affiliate offer or one of many other methods in the arsenal.
- Audios- Just take the article and speak the words into a microphone. Add a little editing and maybe some music and you have a podcast.
- Video- Take the audio and add pictures and upload it to your favorite video site (YouTube, Myspace, Google, etc.).
- Blogs- Place this information on blogs and tweak it slightly to not run into duplicate content (even though this is a myth or urban legend).
- There’s more, stay tuned as I unleash those methods in more details.
I’m using the above procedures for building up traffic to one niche I’m working on right now. I’m also realizing that the first time I do this it takes a little longer to do, each subsequent time is quicker because I have templates and procedures in place. More for later…
Have you figured out what the new plugin is yet that I’m testing? Look at this and the previous two posts, it might help you comment below.
Happy April Fools Day,
Sam Carrara
Plugin Testing
I’m testing a plugin that I recently had made. How do you increase comments in your blog?
Do you know who posted the first comment below? I’ll give you more information when I have completed testing.
Stay tuned, because I’ll be giving it out for free soon.
Plugin Testing,
Sam Carrara
