While heading to my favorite breakfast spot on a lazy Sunday morning, I ran into this snapshot of life.
Marketing 101
Two things immediately made an impression on me.
No. 1 – A business must be in tune with society.
No. 2 – A business must know their audience.
The first one has to do with the guy in the yellow vest. He’s there to try to sell newspapers. Why? Because newspaper subscriptions across the country (not just in Lubbock) have plummeted. In just the past six months, the largest 814 newspapers have declined 1.9%! That’s staggering! Imagine your business falling off that much in a six month period! That number continues a twenty year decline that shows newspaper circulation is currently at the same level it was in 1945! I had hard time finding data on this phenomenon, probably because newspapers are an online distributor of news and who would want to show their recent decline? I did, however, find the website for the Newspaper Association of America and did find circulation numbers through 2008 and was able to build my own graph.
- Newspaper Circulation 1940-2008
Newspaper circulation in the US peaked in 1984 with more than 63 Million in circulation. As of 2008, that number had declined by 23%. And as you can see, the speed at which people are cancelling their subscriptions is increasing. Newspaper companies across the country are panicking, trying to find new revenue streams.
When an industry is dying due to social change, the worst thing a company can do is to try to generate revenue the same way it always has.
Kodak changed the world once.
Take, for example, Kodak. I’m certain that at some point in the mid-1990s, one of the big wigs at Eastman Kodak assured his board members that everything would be just fine. I’m certain that he told them that film would always be king and that these new-fangled digital cameras were just a passing fad. Try to buy a new camera that uses film today. That’s why Kodak went from more than 136,000 employees at its peak to just 20,000 today. Society changed and Kodak failed to change with it.
Kodak stuck to what had worked for more than 100 years. They hired a management staff that was well-educated and paid them handsomely. They had an elite corps of executives who had no common sense. They were well versed in spreadsheets and angry when their spouses and friends bought a digital camera because it was easier to use.
How do you attract customers?
And that brings me to my second point. You have to know your audience. You must know who your customer is and more importantly, GET TO KNOW THEM! Take a closer look at that photo. Pay attention to the sandwich board the other gentleman is wearing. What is his selling point? FREE BEER
I will most likely never step foot in that flea market. It may surprise many of my friends to know that I am not a loyal patron. However, there are people who go there every day, and guess what entices those folks? If they had free iTunes downloads, I’m there. But, they don’t want me because they know I won’t buy anything there. They want the guy who’s thinking, “Free beer, sure why not?” When his wife says, “Hey, let’s go to the flea market.” He’ll think to himself, “That’s the place with free beer. Ok, I’m in.”
If you are in leadership at a company, make sure that you are staying relevant. Society is changing faster than ever. Not only are the slices of the pie getting smaller, there are more pies out there now. IF you work for a company that is not keeping up with the times, find a new job. You may not have one in a few years.
