GREAT Marketing will RUIN a good product

Great marketing can simply ruin a low-quality or even good-quality product or service.  Before you dismiss this post on its face, let me offer an example we can all relate to.

Banking in the 00s has become a “Gotcha Marketer’s” paradise.  Sky-high ATM fees, bank fees, huge conglomerates with no ties or interest in the community.  It’s all pretty discouraging.

According to Bart Narter, senior vice president at Celent, a banking industry research firm, “Overdraft charges, in particular, generate customer steam. Fee income, primarily from bounced checks and overdrafts on debit card, account for close to half of all bank profits.”

So while banks have been running brilliant marketing campaigns with spectacular offers like “Free Checking,” “24-hour online banking” and “no minimum balance”, the joke is on each and every one of us.  Big banks simply can’t live up to their own hype and still turn the kind of profits their investors demand.

A recent J.D. Power and Associates survey reports that satisfaction with banks in general, out of a possible score of 1,000 points, is now at a level of 748. That’s down slightly from 763 three years ago. But what has really plummeted is loyalty. In the 2007 survey, 46% of customers said they “definitely” would not switch banks in the next 12 months. That figure has fallen to only 34% of customers in 2010, which represents a 26% decline.

So while great marketing can win you new customers, it’s how you deliver your product or service that ultimately retains them.  Let your marketing promise the stars and you will only disappoint those hard-won new customers.