Fleeced Marketing!

So Many Wrong Things Are Accepted!

When the weather is colder I usually wear layers of clothing.  I wear layers to help trap air and keep me warmer.  With layers, my own body heat stays inside longer and the cold air outside is not as likely to penetrate to the inside.  This simple stuff makes sense.  The fashion industry helps us to layer clothing by offering ensembles that coordinate well.  Colors, patterns and textures are presented in a way that attracts our attention.  As a result, we layer with pride.  We are not as afraid to throw a bunch of clothes on to keep warmer that also helps us to look good.  As it warms up during the day, we can peel off a piece of clothing or two and still look good.  We can help our body remain the right temperature even if the weather changes in degrees a lot during the day.  As the outside temperature fluctuates a lot we can easily maintain a decent appearance wearing our coordinated layers of clothing.  It works well.

I own a small business.  It is not related to the clothing industry.  However, the idea of layering to keep warm is a great marketing opportunity for the clothing industry.  It allows that industry an opportunity to sell a few things to one customer all at the same time.  Instead of just buying a sweater coat to stay warm during the winter months, customers can also purchase a fashionable undershirt and an additional neck scarf that is designed to work together and look better while staying warmer.  A larger sale can occur while the customer is becoming better pleased.  This is an example of good marketing.  The clothing industry has it made.  They can arrange to control 'group' buying.  Instead of the customer buying just socks...they can purchase coordinated slippers and slip on shoes that help work with the socks to look better on the customer.  Even a robe can be tied into the ensemble.  In fact, some presentations go as far as matching the towels to the bath wear!  Now we can link the soaps, the towels and the bathroom utilities to the whole 'look' that is presented.  The soap dish, the towels, the soaps and the bath robe can all help those socks look so much better.  This kind of marketing is a way to layer connected increases in sales.  It is smart and it works well.  Some 'coordinated' merchants are very good at it.

There are not very many business owners who do not understand this kind of marketing.  The trick to capturing this whole effect in pursuing 'group product' sales increases is to make sure this concept gets understood.  For example, what if you own a real estate company?  How do you take this layering concept to your own industry?  The real trick is to make sure we understand the concept.  When we get the concept clearly placed into our minds we can start working on seeing where we can employ the 'coordinated marketing' techniques.  The rest of our marketing mind needs to figure out how we can 'layer' our marketing efforts.  If we sell homes and property, how do we capture layered marketing effects?  How do we coordinate several items to sell at once...all in the same coordinated effort?  In fact, some industries like real estate have some marketing limitations placed upon them by the rules of their licensing which are not only required but must be upheld.  This kind of effect limits what they can sell to their future customers.  For example, they cannot offer complete decorating services to those who plan to place their homes onto the sellers market.  They cannot add landscaping services to help their clients improve the curb appeal of the home they plan to place up for sale.  They can, however, offer added services like property management.  Through this technique real estate business owners can develop some added layers to their total package to improve the revenues they can attract with each sale.  In order to manage this add on, some thinking must occur.  Owners need to think in layers.  This is how we capture wider market shares doing what we do.  Think in layers.  Learn how to integrate coordinated products and services to be made available to the same customer.

Once a business owner discovers how to develop some increases in market shares they must learn how to respect the way those increases occur.  A lot of times when an owner discovers some new ways to layer new incomes they do not always respect how that new income came to their business model.  They discovered the new income by doing some added things that represent layers of marketing efforts.  When this kind of success occurs, many owners believe the added business growth arrived from doing the stuff they have always been doing.  Some business owners do not recognize the added growth as coming from the wonderful layered ways they perform their business marketing efforts.  For example, a fashion clothing business might try to add a few layered items like matching soaps and towels to one of their popular bath robe vendor products.  They might give the layered idea a little try.  As time grows, more and more customers begin to purchase more of the little extras in the soaps and towels that match their bath robes.  The displays get better with time and the business owner realizes some increased market shares.  However, sometimes when this happens the owner is not a bath soap buyer, nor a bath soap enthusiast so that kind of effort gets limited attention.  The owner is a clothing expert.  That is what they like to do.  So they spend their best efforts in marketing on the things they prefer to do the most.  In this case, they do a better job of clothing presentations than they do in the soap and towel effort.  They only offered the soap and towel additions as an effort to 'fleece' the customers into spending more.  'Fleece' marketing begins its trek.

There are a lot of business models doing exactly this kind of marketing.  They are trying so hard to sell a bunch of stuff that is obviously layered to capture a wider share of market interest but not doing any of it very well.  This is what is known as 'fleece' marketing.  It is designed to attract a wider share of consumer interest doing a whole bunch of connected stuff that is not particularly arranged very well together.  I walk into a lot of business models and I see many of them trying to do this kind of stuff.  If you are a discount business model, this layered marketing technique might work well.  However, if you prefer wider margins of profit with each sale, layered marketing does not work very well if it does not carry some passion along side its overall presentation.  The business owners who fail in their layered marketing efforts might be quietly trapped inside the practice of 'fleece' marketing.  They might find they are more interested in gaining added dollars with each sale than they were about developing a truly real added benefit for their customers to enjoy.  Take a cleaner look at which comes first, the idea of increasing sales or the idea of helping your customer to gain an added benefit?  The proper motive will clear up the path for avoiding 'fleeced' marketing.  Customers do not like to feel like they have been 'fleeced.'  Make sure you give them good soaps and towels.

Sometimes We Do Not Notice The Wrong Stuff We Do

'Fleeced' marketing can happen without notice.  Some business owners do not even notice when they are practicing it.  I see examples everywhere.  I know the owners of those business models do not even know they are killing their marketing efforts.  They cannot be serious and continue to practice this kind of marketing if they truly recognized how damaging it can become.  Let me offer up some common examples.

I have witnessed a sporting goods retailer offer a daily radio weather segment on the air for its active area listeners.  Every single day they went on the air 'live' to describe the weather patterns and how those patterns can be enjoyed by the sports enthusiasts in the region.  It was some smart marketing.  What a great way to help increase attention to the kinds of things customers could do each weekend when they did not know exactly how they wanted to play on their upcoming weekend.  The owner of the sporting goods store got on the air with the radio D.J. and they chatted about a few subjects and then the store owner read the key signals of the weather report.  It became a 'hit.'  It was funny, personal and useful.

As time went on, the owner added some radio comments about new lines of clothing he recently added so he was able to capture new customer interest from other market segments.  Very smart stuff.  It worked really well until the owner become so busy during the retail day that he would miss the time slot to call the radio station and do his routine.  As a result, the daily radio segment for that agreement was met by the radio station playing yesterdays routine to fill the dedicated time slot.  The sporting goods owner was beginning to 'fleece' his listeners.  When the audience habitually tuned in to hear the new and funny segment, they got disappointed only to hear yesterdays repeat report.  As this kind of 'skip' continued to happen, the unique exchange that once was good to hear now felt like plain old, tired advertising to the once entertained listening consumer.  The consumer felt 'fleeced' by the lack of attention given to the timely reports.  A once great marketing idea and pattern eventually became a costly mistake for the sporting goods owner.  He was no longer attracting new customers and no longer adding flavor to the relationships he already had with his sports enthusiasts who regularly listened in.  His customers felt 'fleeced.'  The good results drifted away.

'Fleeced' marketing does not always need to be intentional to be wrong.  The popular sporting goods store radio program was a perfect example of this.  The owner of the sporting goods store did not intentionally skip a few of his daily radio segments.  He just allowed his tail to wag the dog.  He was not disciplined enough to remain steadfast to stick to the daily call to produce a new and fresh radio spot each day.  That is what originally kept the listener interested.  The customer always likes to be entertained.  Sometimes we practice 'fleeced' marketing without notice.  Our customers will not likely be able to define why they do not like what we do or do not do, but trust me, they will respond accordingly with their debit cards.  That brings up another great subject of 'fleecing.'

When a business posts signs near their sales registers that describe how they do not accept credit cards, or checks or cash...those business models are stating the fact that they do not mind the consumer feeling like they have been 'fleeced.'  When you place monetary limits on the way your consumer can spend its money with your business, you are describing to your customers how you are more interested in saving your loses than earning their trust.  That my friends, is what 'fleecing' is all about.  Get serious.  If you do not like the way it costs you to take a few bad checks, just add that cost to your margin of sales and forget about it.  Make sure you are operating the design of your business model to include the proper margin of profits with each sale that will easily cover the normal losses that will always occur in your business model.  Loss is part of the deal, people.  Just budget it in.  Quit trying to manage the consciousness of your patrons.  Some of them are crooks and some of them are poor check book managers.  Loss comes with the package of owning.  Get over it, budget for it and make sure your margins cover the average cost that your model experiences.  Quit chasing a small segment of your market away by trying to control how they can spend their money with your operation.  That, my friend, is "fleece' marketing.  You are not pulling the wool over their eyes.  Every customer can read those limiting counter-placed signs that read, "We Accept No Checks!"  Stop it.  It sounds stingy!  Just add five cents to every single sale you make during the year and I bet you can cover for the few bad checks you take in.  Remove the negative signs.  Get away from the 'fleeced' patterns of 'No, No, No.'

I never will be able to understand why any business owner would ever post such stupid signs to try and 'power control' their wonderful customers?  I am a great customer, pay my bills and take care of my financial responsibilities.  When I am told they will not accept how I like to spend my money, I leave.  How do you properly measure that kind of loss?  You cannot.  That kind of decision does not show up on any type of spreadsheet.  Therefore, that kind of loss does not appear in any business report.  It goes unnoticed.  This is exactly where the idea of 'fleeced' marketing hurts the most.  When I decide to leave that business without making a purchase because they posted how they will not allow me to spend my money, I create a loss to those businesses without them knowing it.  I do not wait until I get to the sales counter before I know how they accept payments.  The ones who restrict payment methods always have their signs posted.  What's more, they seem to be content with that result.  I guess if it does not show up on the loss-line of the business ledgers, they believe the loss does not exist.  I have news for those who practice such silly stuff.  It happens to you a lot more than you will ever know.  Rip your negative 'fleecing' signs down.  You are exposing your greedy patterns to the customers you so want to attract.  If you believe they do not notice this pattern, you are dead wrong.  Stop your 'fleece' marketing.  It is limiting your revenue growth.  I know that will wick some of you readers and owners off, but it is the truth.  Stop 'fleecing' your customers.  They are quietly going away.  How smart is that?

Fleeced marketing.  It will eventually drive too much business away.  I could spend two days writing about all of the crazy 'fleeced' marketing examples I see.  Get it understood.

Until next time...