A few years ago I found myself at a central Ohio auto dealership that specialized in exotic sports cars. I was there to see the marketing director. He was busy at the time, so I decided to go to the building next door where they had the showroom for Lamborghinis and Ferraris.
When I entered the showroom area, I saw two men in white shirts and ties talking to a tall, thin elderly man in coveralls. There was also an elderly woman sitting at a table eyeing an accessories catalog. My first impression was that the elderly man was either the janitor or perhaps a mechanic. I figured the lady was just waiting for her husband to get off work or something. But when I jokingly asked her if she wanted the Lamborghini parked on the showroom floor near her, she replied, "Oh, no. We already have two of those. We are here to get another model!" And she was serious!
The reason I am telling you that story is that it is a classic example of prejudging. Most of you would have jumped to the same conclusion I did based solely on appearance. If I had been one of those salesmen, I may very well have handled that lead in the wrong way and lost the sale. We who are in sales often do judge by appearances. Often it makes sense to do so, but we should hold off on judging our potential client until our fact-finding has done its work. If our lead has an old work vehicle, or isn't dressed as well as we might expect, we need to exercise caution before we predetermine that our products are not for them or are financially out of their reach. (Remember The Beverly Hillbillies? Talk about making a mistake in prejudging!)
On another occasion, I walked into a different dealership (Lexus or Acura), again trying to make a cold call on the marketing manager. There was nothing to my knowledge that would have indicated that I "didn't belong". I wanted to see how long it would take for someone to approach me. At that point the staff had no idea whether I was there to sell them advertising or to buy a car, or two, or even a fleet! I had stopped by on my way to another appointment, so I couldn't linger; but for the time that I was there, not a soul in the showroom paid the least attention to me. No one asked if they could help me. No one asked what I needed. Maybe they only dealt with customers by preset appointment. Maybe I wasn't dressed formally enough. Or maybe they were just lazy. But I walked out without doing business with them.
Bottom line: Don't prejudge. Treat all your customers and potential customers with equal respect and attention. Take the time to find out what you can do for them. Fit the product or service to their need and then work on the price. If what you have to offer is of sufficient value to the customer, they will determine whether they can purchase your product.
I read the following excerpt in an article on MarketingProfs.com. The article's emphasis is on making the most of your Facebook and Twitter presence by using a variety of functions on those pages to get your social media visitors to be more engaged with you and to do more business with you. Note the figures:
I recommend businesses to be active in social media all the time, but let's make sure we keep our feet firmly planted in a little reality. Notice that only about half of Facebook users pay attention to it on a daily basis. And in Twitter's case, less than a fourth of its users use it on a monthly basis. There are over 314 million people in the United States. As of April, 2013, there are 158,848,960 U.S. Facebook users. That is about 51% of the population. So what about the other 49%? And according to online sources such as The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/may/01/facebook-loses-10m-visitors-us, Facebook has lost 10 million U.S. users in the past year. Are you putting an inordinate amount of time and effort into reaching only half of your potential market by overemphasizing social media?
There is a very large number of people who have no Facebook or Twitter pages, don't understand what a "tweet" is or how to do it, and who aren't interested in participating. I know it seems hard to believe for those of you who are all about social media, but there is a world out there that doesn't think or act like you do. Smartphones, as popular as they are, and as fast as they are becoming more prominent, are not the only phone choices yet. There actually are some people who don't want one, whether due to the cost or not wanting all the "bells and whistles" or whatever.
To a kid with a new hammer, everything looks like a nail, and sometimes I think marketers act this way about new technologies. I recently saw an app (may have been a prototype) in which you could view a virtual butterfly fluttering on your camera screen, looking as if it were actually in your environment. If you swooped your Smartphone in a net-like scooping motion, you could "capture" the butterfly and even collect different types. I believe the object was similar to the old days when you might collect cereal box tops and send a certain number in to win a little prize of some kind. Involvement? Sure. Interesting? To some, yes. Will it work to garner visitors or users? Probably. Should it be added to your marketing program? Mmmmm. Maybe. Maybe not. Depends on your demographic focus, doesn't it?
Let's remember, not every consumer is a young, tech-savvy, metropolitan, gotta-have-it-now person. Contrary to the television commercials that depict twenty year olds dressed in suave black clothing and dancing around to hip music in urban nighttime settings, most of us aren't like that. Mom and Pop Smith just want to sell and service their merchandise and want to get that message in front of consumers the best they can. And Joe Public, who isn't necessarily suave, sophisticated and loaded with money, just wants to know where he can get good products at a good price. He may not be interested in chasing make-believe butterflies around on his phone screen or chatting on social media.
Bottom line: While appealing to your social media users, don't exclude the rest of your potential customer base. Don't throw everything you have into that one basket. Remember the tried and true methods of reaching people. Print and other "traditional" media still work. They reach a large segment of your demographic who are average, work-a-day Joe's and Jill's without all the frills. There are a lot of them, and they spend money too.
