YESTERDAY i was invited to a networking event at the Institute of Directors in London’s statue-festooned Pall Mall. It was held by UK government business advice agency, Business LInk.
One of the attendees told a great tale of how differentiating your offering in a recession can be the difference between surviving or going under.
It involves a lobster seller in Seattle’s world famous Pike Market. The market is home to an abundance of lobsters stalls, but only one was doing good business.
So what was this lobster seller doing that the others weren’t? Very little, actually.
On one side of his stall he had a large chalkboard, bearing a simple recipe for lemon lobster, and on the other he had a mound of lemons, which customers were invited to help themselves to.
It was a wildly successful marketing ploy, and one that cost the lobster seller but a few dollars a day, in lemons.
Another interesting part of this tale was that his customers weren’t tottering off bearing armfuls of free lemons; they took only two, because that was all the recipe called for.
I’d love to hear any brilliant recession marketing wheezes you may have come across. Leave your comments below.
Other customer and client case studies
Two prong SME recession strategy
We’ll defy recession, says 80% of SMEs
Differentiate or die, firms warned
Recession marketing: Don't do a Moxie
Recession marketing: Do a Ryanair
Peril of lowering bar on clients
Keep calm, and carry on marketing
Recession marketing: Focus on value
A marketing tale for our times
16/12/2009
Pike Market, Seattle, where one lobster seller has hit on the secret of recession marketing - differentiation.
Planet Client is the only online editorial resource dedicated to giving small to medium sized enterprises a deeper understanding of how to win clients, retain clients and understand clients.
Client & Customer Content (What’s this?)
