A colleague of mine sent me this photo knowing how much I love to talk about advertising and marketing. A couple of things jumped out at me when I saw this photo.

First, in this clearly working class neighborhood the sign seems oddly out of place. The guy’s yard is the size of a Kleenex tissue and has no room to raise sheep. It would be against the zoning laws to have animals in this neighborhood. I wondered, “Where is he getting the lambs? Where is he raising them? And why?"

The other obvious question is, if everyone in the neighborhood has the same size lots, the same zoning restrictions about farm animals, who is going to buy the lambs. There are very few spinning wheels and even fewer people knitting sweaters in this general area so it’s not about the wool. This simply isn’t lamb chop territory--we are more about our beef and chicken.

So not only do I wonder who would buy a lamb, I wonder why anyone would buy a lamb.

And there you have your marketing tip(s) of the day.

1-Location: Duh! Put your store where people who need it can get there. Someone told me once that McDonalds isn’t in the hamburger business, they are in the real estate business. Wherever there is a good corner or suburban strip mall, McDonalds is right there. McDonalds builds stores wherever there are busy, hungry people.

If you are a web-based business, the same principles apply. Make it accessible, easy and relevant to the lives of the users.

Now there are exceptions to the location rule. I know of a Thai restaurant that isn’t convenient to anything and they pack in the crowds. It’s in a semi-industrial area nowhere near the downtown lunch crowd, but boy, does it have a lunch crowd. Best Gang Dang on the planet. How does this work? See item 3 below.

2-Audience: Know who they are, what their needs are, why they buy your products or services. Know their personal longings and desires so you know if your feature set meshes with their aspirations.

3-Need: For heaven sake make sure you have a product someone needs. I don’t know how many Flobee hair cutting devices they sold but it seems like it didn’t do much to improve on scissors as the best way for a do-it-yourself barber. A few interviews with customers can tell you a lot. If good, in-depth qualitative research with focus groups is not an option, spend whatever time you can with a prospective audience group and find out their needs, not yours. (If you must have Thai Gang Dang, you’ll go almost anywhere to get your fix.)

One final thought: make the sign bigger. If you must be in the suburban lamb business, make the sign big enough to read from the street.

These seem like fairly elemental ingredients in the marketing mix, and if you are a sophisticated marketing manager you probably find this discussion pablum for beginners. You already know and practice all this. Right.

No you don’t. However elementary they are, these are three things worth re-examining in any business, any time. If you’ve done this, do it again and again, every time you roll out a new product.

I had a client who is seasoned, bright and informed. They thought there was a real need for their product, new in their line, and they confused their passion and enthusiasm for reality in the marketplace. They confused their needs for real customer needs. A million dollars later they are starting to think there might not be as much demand for their product as they guessed. Please notice the word guess because that’s pretty much what they did.

Unless you have the odd million here and there to toss away, you may want to think about this basic advice from a marketing 101 primer a bit more. Or you might end up selling lambs in suburbia. Baaaad idea.

Tags: Audience | Advertising | Branding