Ice to the Eskimos
Spolestra articulates 19 principles or ground rules of jump-start marketing, which are:
1. You 've got to want to clip on the wires and turn up the juice. In other words you and your team must be highly motivated to try new things to reposition your product.
2. Don 't fool yourself into thinking you 're somebody else - accept the realistic limitations of your core product or service, and build from there.
3. Increase the frequency of purchases by your customers. No matter how poor your current product or service, you must have some customers or clients. One key strategic dimension that you should be thinking about is how to augment and reposition your product in order to sell more to this group.
4. Get the name and address of the end user of your product. This is fundamental. If you sell through a distributor, you may lose the chance to get direct feedback from customers (as well as the opportunity to directly sell to them) unless you have ways and means of finding out who they are (such as names and addresses from warranty cards).
5. The janitor isn 't going to lead the charge for new customers. A focus on jump-start marketing must come from the top.
6. Create big change with little experiments. Spolestra advocates trying little experiments to augment the basic product - initiatives that don 't cost much time or money but that may pay off big dividends in terms of customer reaction. He suggests that what he terms 'terrorist groups for innovation ' (a group within the company that wants to pursue new innovative marketing ideas) be formed within the organization to pursue these ideas.
7. Don 't wait for a new product to bail you out - use innovative marketing now.
8. To get your ideas approved by the boss, prepare as if you were defending yourself in front of the Supreme Court. When you and your team have innovative jump-start marketing ideas, make sure you do your homework in order to get them approved. Even these little innovations have to be justified in
1. You 've got to want to clip on the wires and turn up the juice. In other words you and your team must be highly motivated to try new things to reposition your product.
2. Don 't fool yourself into thinking you 're somebody else - accept the realistic limitations of your core product or service, and build from there.
3. Increase the frequency of purchases by your customers. No matter how poor your current product or service, you must have some customers or clients. One key strategic dimension that you should be thinking about is how to augment and reposition your product in order to sell more to this group.
4. Get the name and address of the end user of your product. This is fundamental. If you sell through a distributor, you may lose the chance to get direct feedback from customers (as well as the opportunity to directly sell to them) unless you have ways and means of finding out who they are (such as names and addresses from warranty cards).
5. The janitor isn 't going to lead the charge for new customers. A focus on jump-start marketing must come from the top.
6. Create big change with little experiments. Spolestra advocates trying little experiments to augment the basic product - initiatives that don 't cost much time or money but that may pay off big dividends in terms of customer reaction. He suggests that what he terms 'terrorist groups for innovation ' (a group within the company that wants to pursue new innovative marketing ideas) be formed within the organization to pursue these ideas.
7. Don 't wait for a new product to bail you out - use innovative marketing now.
8. To get your ideas approved by the boss, prepare as if you were defending yourself in front of the Supreme Court. When you and your team have innovative jump-start marketing ideas, make sure you do your homework in order to get them approved. Even these little innovations have to be justified in