Marketing is More Than a TVC: Go for your own jugular!

We get asked all the time, “Why is Boost around and most of our competitors are well gone?”

There is no one answer; it is a holistic approach. Which is true for all businesses – it’s only the failed businesses that think there is a single magic bullet.

My husband, Jeff, (the true marketing genius behind Boost) always says that marketing is so simple: Find out what the customers want and give it to them.

“Gee”, you say, “Tell me something I don’t know!”

But how many of the businesses, big and small, forget the simplest things? What it boils down to is you must be your own harshest critic to get it right. Here are four simple but important tips that helped Boost get where it is today:

#1 Know your audience  

Customers in any business want that same thing: Great value, amazing customer service and to be surprised and delighted from time to time. But how many times have you been in a board room or a meeting and a person of power who is well out of the demography of your particular customers has an opinion that is based on his generation or thoughts and forgets his market?

Years ago when Jeff (the husband I mentioned earlier) was the National Program Director of Austereo, he asked me all the time what I thought of the on-air talent at Fox FM. I was starting to get quite a big head thinking that he valued my opinion on programming and my ideas on the radio station. Then he moved to MMM, which is very male-dominated. I heard something on MMM that I thought was not quite right and thought, “Jeff values my opinion so much – he’ll want to know!”

When I gave him my thoughts, he seriously looked at me as if I had two heads and promptly told me that he didn’t care what I thought as I wasn’t in the target market!

#2 Get the facts

It’s so true that we believe with our years of experience that we know what the customer wants. But research is not always the answer either; there are many ideas out there that would never have seen the light of day if we relied totally on research. However a combination of research, gut instinct and experience normally gets you to where you want to go.

#3 Deliver the goods

There is no point spending a dollar on marketing driving people into website, retail outlets or any business if when they get there the experience or product that we promised was not delivered. I never understand when I call a business and the receptionist is grumpy and does not represent the business that they are working for. Every part of every business needs to be part of the marketing arm of the business.

So the marketing’s team’s job is to get them into the stores and it is the job of all the rest of us to make sure we make their day just that little bit better. We certainly don’t always get it right, but with the right people to drive the training and communication and the right focus and resourcing you can get there.

#4 Follow up      

We have a guarantee in every store. We have a “Tell us what you think” request on our newsletter. We respond to all feedback – good and bad – within 24 hours, and we fix all the things that we need to fix. We’ve done this from day one and we’ll never stop.

You need to be your own worst critic to make sure you’re delivering the goods. The day you stop attacking yourself is the day that you need to hang up your boots!

About Janine

Janine Allis is the founder of Boost Juice & Retail Zoo; Executive Director at Retail Zoo, Salsa’s Fresh Mex, Cibo Espresso and Hatch. You can follow Janine on her blog here

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