The Great Marketing Water Relay Race

I was never particularly athletic. But as a kid, there was one event that my team usually won. The Water Relay Race. You and your teammates stood in a line, and when the whistle blew, the first member would run like crazy to the full bucket of water, dip a glass in, and then carry it back to the team’s measuring jar. You then passed the glass to your teammate. The team with the most water in the allocated time, won.

Why we used to win this I don’t really know. I do remember providing the strategy of covering the full glass with your hand while running back, but surely other teams picked up on this quickly enough.

Anyhow my observation for today is that a Marketing Activity is very similar to a water Relay Race.

Here’s how it goes:

You are approached for a product or an event offer. It so happens that the offer interests you and you sign up for the event.

Hopefully, the next team member then calls you. The marketing strategy, is twofold: a) confirm your information is correct, b) remind you of the event.

You attend the event, and the third team member gets an idea of how interested you are in their product. If he uses the “hand over glass” strategy, he/she is noting down whether you can afford the product, when you are likely to buy it, why you need it, and which competitors you are checking out.

And so this Marketing Team wins the blue ribbon in the Water Relay Race.

It is a very simple allegory. And I haven’t even gotten to the “make the sale” part.

The marketing person in me enjoys watching where other Marketing teams drop the glass. Here are two examples in my personal experience:

Kaya Skin Clinic Free Check-up:

I SMS-ed my interest after watching a TV commercial (this remains the only time I have ever done this), which I think says a lot for the commercial.

I get an SMS confirming my application.

I get a call asking me a date and time, then telling me my time was not available, then telling me the time and date that was available. (I was already half-hearted at this point). Let me add here that it goes against the grain to go see a skin specialist who’ll then closely examine your face under a bright light and proceed to tell you all about your flaws.

I only imagine the above because I never went. I simply forgot my appointment.

There was no further news from Kaya of which I’m rather thankful.


Apple Workshop:

I was approached outside Chennai CitiCentre with an invitation to an Apple Mac Book Pro workshop. I signed up, chose a date and time.

I later received a call and asked if I would attend, which I said yes to, but the time mentioned during the phone call was different from the one I signed up for. I asked the lady if she could confirm the original time I signed up for and she said she'd call back.

She never did.

Rather sad in both cases, since Kaya Skin clinic is walking distance from my house, and my husband does fully intend to buy an Apple MacBook Pro, we just don’t know when.

Freshness guaranteed!

One of the most common refrains you hear from clients in India, while working on their website content or marketing material is this: “Have your writer take a look at this content and make it fresh.”

If you’re not from India that basically means “do a rewrite”.

This used to be the source of endless frustration for me as a writer, because if I think the content has been well-written, I prefer to use it exactly as it has been given.

In India, that could be a problem, because:

1. The content is not client-original, meaning they’ve ripped it off competitor sites.
2. The content has been written by the CEO, CTO, VP-whatever for a completely different purpose and your client is actively recycling.
3. The client wants his money’s worth out of the writer.

The above cynical view developed over my time with agencies. However, now that I’m on the other side of the table, I not only see it was remarkably accurate, but I now have a few more reasons to add:

1. The content was written in 1987 when the company was founded. It was never updated and by “making it fresh” they want YOU to get their sales material up-to-date.
2. The content has been used so many, many times in multiple formats across group websites, intranet pages and newsletters, that they are just sick of seeing it, and want to “repackage” it in a way that’s “fresh and new”.
3. SEO is the flavor of month and so the client wants content to be constantly updated. Unfortunately, there’s no new information.

If you have a tone or theme for your content, this issue of new content usually sorts itself out. Or if you understand what’s going on behind the curtains, you can usually get a general idea of what the client expects to see in the rewrite. However, if all you’ve heard is “make it fresh” without the knowing the reason why, you’re in for a long rally of submissions and rejections.

So as always, I encourage you to pick up the phone and ask.