Last week I went fishing in Northumberland with my daughter.  We like to fish for trout and it was a spur of the moment thing so it was abouty 11.00 when we got there.  Too late for the fish to be feeding and we caught nothing.

So on Saturday we decided to get up early and fish while the trout were more likely to be feeding.  Success, up to around 11.00 and then quiet again.  Usually we use live bait and my daughter (10 years old) suggested we use a spinner.  All the wise heads around us said it hardly ever works (which means they never try it), but I wasn’t going to argue with her.  So we moved position 100 yards and started spinning.  Immediate success!  The first bite was a surprise (and maybe a fluke) but when 5 minutes later we caught another good sized trout we could see the others around us reaching for their spinners.

The marketing moral?

1.  Test your campaigns
2.  The right timing is crucial – people aren’t in buying mode all of the time
3. Change your messages
4. Don’t just follow everyone else
5. Take notice of people with new ideas (especially 10 year olds!) 

Of course it’s really very obvious, but if you think it’s so obvious it doesn’t happen, have a good look at magazine advertising sometime.

Tags: Marketing

This entry was posted on Monday, June 29th, 2009 at 1:10 pm and is filed under Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.