Marketing Products and Services

What are your first memories of marketing?  As a kid, what really made you want stuff?  Was it the commercials?  You saw stuff on tv and you wanted to try it.  It looked fun.  The hamburgers had clowns and there were characters that grabbed your attention.  

There were other ways that the marketing messages got through.  What about what the popular kids wore?  Did you pay attention to the items that the older kids talked about?  Did looking up to others influence your wants and desires?  

Tv and the radio played a big part in getting the messages to the public.  Newspapers and magazines also brought new information to your doorstep.  Now, we have the internet and a million tv channels, plus youtube.  What is going to influence your market today?  Who do they look up to?  What is driving their wants?  

Does your product or service have a story?  I almost forgot about the movies.  Movies have a big impact too.  You are sitting in a movie theater and the images are large and in charge.  Can you weave a story into your product or service presentation?  Who is your product for?  Why do they need it?  Are you solving a problem or creating a new alternative?

People have plenty of options when it comes to entertainment and information.  There are lots of niche websites and tv channels.  Fox news viewers might have a different view than the msnbc crowd.  People from different generations have different outlooks on life.  Seniors might have different ideas than the generation x crowd.  How do your products and services speak to their different needs?  Just a few questions to get it started.