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Remember When Marketing
"Remember When" is more than just a popular Alan Jackson song. When it comes to business, Remember When not only brings back memories of simpler times but it should also embarrass some modern businesses. Many of the ways that American business used to be done have been replaced by technology but this doesn't mean that "old style" marketing and customer service should be thrown out the window.
One line in the Alan Jackson song goes something like this, "Remember When thirty seemed so old, Now Looking back, It's just a stepping stone, to where we are, where we have been, said we'd do it all again, Remember When". In the song Mr. Jackson is singing about an age that many of us, in our youth, considered old, but after attaining this age we realized that it wasn't such a milestone after all. And when looking back we realized that what we had done along the way to successfully attain that magical age should be done all over again. To do that in business we must look back and see where we have been.
Remember when businesses fell all over each other to gain your business? Remember when businesses made products that lasted longer than necessary? Remember when customer service was expected, not just hoped for? Now looking back, were these just stepping stones to success or should they be an integral part of every modern business?
It's easy to see how many businesses get caught up in the modern " make a quick buck now syndrome", after all we see it everyday. Out sourced customer service call centers, where the number of operators is determined by the length of time some study showed that customers were willing to stay on hold. Products made with the intent that they won't last much longer than the warranty. And lastly businesses focused more on short term profit than building long term customer relationships. These symptoms and many others are the signs of a business that has no idea of where we are, or where we have been as far as success in American business is concerned.
I still believe that to be successful in the long term it is necessary to implement and merge the business strategies that have worked for decades along with modern technology. Otherwise the only thing people will be saying about your business is,
"Remember When" their doors were open!
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Cross Domain Marketing Revisited
Cross domain marketing is gaining a real foothold, so much so that major corporations are using it more and more often.
What is cross domain advertising? Cross domain advertising is when a company uses a domain name other than it's own to reach a new or different marketing segment. The best known example of this is the " Now What?" or www.nowwhat.com , The commercials feature a number of incidents like a couple rock climbing and a boulder falls and crushes their car. Now What? is super imposed over the scene and the www.nowwhat.com domain is displayed. The advertisements are from State Farm Insurance. When you arrive at the Now What site you are offered an opportunity to get an insurance quote and find out more.
Recently, Reynold's Clothing joined the cross domain marketing club. While introducing a new young men's department in their popular men's clothing store it became apparent that advertising to the demographic that purchases these products would require a different approach. An approach that would reach or capture a younger market than Reynold's Clothing traditionally focused on.
Ads ran linking to or directing customers to a new domain appropriately named www.g2styles.com , were created with the young men target market in mind. The one page domain or website reveals the new product line and lets customers know that the product line is available at Reynold's Clothing.
Reynold's Clothing's new campaign is an excellent example of both target marketing and cross domain advertising.
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