So, question: when was the last time you went to a school fete? I suspect if you have kids you might go once a year. Maybe even more. But I don't have kids, and I last went to a school fete when I was at school. And that, my friends, was a long time ago.
One of the books that got me into marketing and into setting up my own company was called 'Punk Marketing' by Richard Laermer and Mark Simmons. In my opinion it's a revolutionary read and opens up your mind to how you approach marketing your own company. Richard, based in New York, has since become an email friend and someone who is still very vocal in the field of marketing and PR.
If another business tells me they soley rely on word of mouth marketing for all their business referrals, I’ll scream.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with word of mouth marketing – and god only knows we do actually talk about it with clients all the time – but the way some people refer to it with a shrug of their shoulders like they don’t know how its working for them, can be infuriating
Approximately three years ago I wrote a blog on Dominos after a bad pizza (can those two words ever be put together?) experience. I suggested that unlike other areas of the FMCG marketplace, both Dominos and Pizza Hut had failed to embrace the concept of 'premiumisation' and that if they continued to punt out sub-standard cheap fayre, that would inevitably be their undoing.
Don't get me wrong. I'm a fan of direct mail. I've received some great pieces in my time - only a few months ago I got a razor from Woolworths. Nice touch. The mail, not the razor. But if you're going to spruik direct mail like Australia Post's 'Open Up To Mail', and you're going to spruik it to marketing folk, then really, your data needs to be water-tight.
This article was originally written by Dallas Lawrence, the Chair of the Social and Digital Media Practice at Levick Strategic Communications and appeared on Mashable. We have changed a few parts but most of Dallas's original text remains here, with our additional comments towards the end.
