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On marketing not-so-hot cakes

May 13, 2008 | Hospitality Industry

Condos in Miami, traditional music stores, gas-guzzling cars, pharmaceuticals that get bad press and foods made with trans fats: All marketers, from time to time, confront products that, for whatever reason, become difficult to sell.

While the ultimate goal of marketing is to target products to customers who are ready to buy, occasionally products or services require an additional push. When that happens, marketers need creative ideas to tide them over until the market returns or the company is able to change strategic direction, according to Wharton faculty and marketers. “From the individual marketer’s point of view, there are times you feel selling something is impossible. But if you think more about it, there are so many different kinds of customers out there. You just need to find them,” says Wharton marketing professor John Zhang.

If customers aren’t buying, more often than not it is an indication that a company is targeting the wrong people. “We all know the saying about one man’s trash being another man’s treasure, and you just need to find the man who treasures your trash,” Zhang quips. To find that man, a company must study its market and customers, figure out why its product is or is not clicking with certain segments, and decide what buttons it can push to get targeted customers excited. “Believe me, going through a systematic, rigorous process of segmentation, targeting and positioning—an age-old marketing approach—is much easier than finding a man who loves your trash,” Zhang continues. “A selling job is always difficult if you don’t really know your customers well and if you simply make projections based on your own experience and intuition. You think, ‘If I hate this, everybody else will hate it.’ But that assumption may not be true.”

Zhang recommends marketers put themselves in the shoes of customers and think critically. “You may find the selling job is not impossible.”

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