DVTimes

I wrote about using nude pics in marketing.

https://gfy.com/fucking-around-and-pr...e-content.html

The logic was give nude pics away free. This will result in huge traffic. In turn huge sales.

The result is the consumer realized there was a ton of free content and would go on sites simply looking for it. The result was often benefited were the sites that hosted the free content rather than the pay site that had invested time and money in the content.

Many years ago one I had done my degree for a few years I did door to door sales. Something I would urge anyone who is selling anything to do, as you can teach yourself so much from doing so.

The best product/service I sold was a UK system called OnDigital.

For those who do not know about it, it was the early days when they started to broadcast digital TV. From what I remeber it was about £10 per month.

But what was interesting, was the owners of OnDigital used there logic to presume various facts on the selling of the system. Something that led (in my mind) to the end of OnDigital. Yet it should now be huge.

This is my point about using logic rather than say research to do marketing.

Now the first things to note are what were the selling points:

• This was when wide screen TV's came about. But on normal non digital TV to get the wide view you had to change the aspect ratio or stretch the image out (it looked dreadful). While with OnDigital set boxes you got the full image. [Anytime someone had a wide screen TV I knew I had a sale].
• Channel 5 had just started. But for many areas you could ONLY get it on digital.
• Lots more stations. And it was ONLY £10.
• The box we gave away (the set top box was free with us) could also plug direct into the TV socket (old TV's have no scart socket).
• It had some (not all) Sky TV stations.

But there were downsides:

• The signal strength of digital TV at the time was low. So if your TV areal was not facing the correct position you would not get a digital signal. So often when I plugged the box in it did not work.
• The set top boxes had been made so quick, some had faults.
• You could buy pirated cards on the internet and so rather than pay for more stations, you could get them free.
• Lack of Sky stations on the system. Some people wanted more.
• We credit checked. [BOOM]

You will note that we credit checked. This was probably (in my mind) the marketing aspect that messed OnDigital up.

You see at the training I was in the first group. As such the top brass came down one day to see how the training was going. I asked a question.

Why credit check?

The reply was 'but surly you want to know the customer can pay'. However at the time Sky did not credit check (I am not sure if they do now). The point was it was ONLY £10.

When I did the selling I often found people who were wealthy failed the credit check. For instance one chap ran his own business. He had two Ferraris (I think I spelt the car name wrong) parked outside. But because of a destitute with a company his credit rating was shot. He then simply picked up the phone and got Sky.

It was embarrassing to have to ask strangers lots of personal details too. And the staff who you called were to be honest a bunch of w*nkers. Plus we used to have to use the customers phone as mobile phones were in those days not cheap to spend all day phoning (the w*nkers at the OnDigital office could jerk you around for 40 mins - costing you a fortune and killing your mobile phone battery). Nothing was worse than getting the sale then having to turn it down because they failed the credit check - it was an hour wasted, and it was ONLY for £10.

But in the minds of OnDigital a credit check was a good idea.

In reality it meant they lost many customers, and wasted our time.

While I would often make £300 or more each day in commission, for working no more than 2 hours a day (I would go at 5pm and sell till 7pm as thats when people had got home from work), I would often be annoyed that I could have easily hit £1000 or more each day if I had not needed to credit check people. In deed OnDigital would now have had more customers I believe than Sky.

One reason I got more sales than others was I would install the box as a demonstration. It meant I could show them the box working, plus once in people wanted to sit and watch. Others used to sell without installing. This was quicker and in a day they got more sales BUT they would get many cancelling as they could not get a signal. While even if I did not get a signal I would arrange our Arial chap to install a new arial (we provided a pro digital arial for next to nothing).
BUT

I have time and time again noted that often businesses presume a lot in marketing without knowing if the logic matches up to reality.

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