June 2007 Archives
There’s a small town in Ohio where a lot of big advertising takes place. It's also where most of the talent booking takes place, including freelance design and art direction. I only know this because somebody I grew up with is a male actor (very vain, very fickle, very average) who occasionally appears in commercials. I learned the same thing from Barbara Bills, a seasoned professional and highly efficient production manager for more than a few big ad agencies in her time. She said to me once, “I get lots of calls from freelancers who want to show me their portfolios and I’m always glad to give them a few tips when I have time. But sometimes, I am absolutely baffled when they show up with no idea what they’re selling. They aren’t sure what their specialty is; they like doing one thing but have no samples. They want logo work, but they design silly little detailed logos that no one would be able to reproduce. Didn’t anybody tell them that a corporate identity has to work in print as well as on the web?” Before you go out marketing your services, make sure you know what you want to sell.
PRICE: Is it RIGHT or is it WRONG?
In the best of worlds, product launches are thoughtful, labor intensive risk-taking with marketing strategies firmly in place. Before investing in a new venture, four key marketing factors are carefully defined: Product, Position, Price and Promotion. Get any one of these wrong, and results will be less than stellar. Whether it’s widgets, consumer goods, or professional services, knowing the 4Ps will achieve maximum results with minimum effort. Ethics should be a part of pricing, but that is not always the case.
Here's an example; genital herpes is a painful, recurrent and debilitating disease that still has no cure. A friend of mine described it as being on fire from the inside out. When a repressive agent for the disease was discovered, a marketing team used focus groups to decide price. Questionnaires asked, “How much would you pay for relief from this condition?” Respondants answered “$100 a day” and “everything I have”. The questionnaire continued with price ranges, feeling out the market for how much is too much and what the market would bear.
