Dodo Loves Marketing

The fourth quadrant comprises change-ripe customers, who, like the delegators, hire expertise they themselves lack but, unlike the delegators, insist on staying personally involved in the job. In remodeling a house, for example, a collaborator would not only team up with a designer; he or she would work side by side with the expert to create the best-suited outcome.

Collaborators are not to be confused with kibitzers, meddlers, or control freaks. An authentic collaborator genuinely appreciates the depth of knowledge and practical skills of well-chosen experts. Such collaborators respond well to suppliers—such as a truly devoted banker—wh_o offer themselves as coaches, mentors, or partners in launching a customer’s new business venture. ..more

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Home Depot’s vast assortment of building supplies shows that it, too, knows that customers savor choice. But an even more important reason for its lasting success is that it knows how to capitalize on a customer’s wish to perform a task him- or herself. Home Depot employs our second strategy to attract the searchers, showering them with advice and insight.

This paradise for those who subscribe to do-it-yourself turns modestly competent amateurs into confident renovators and barely competent fumblers into people capable of remodeling their kitchens. Home Depot’s employees don’t do the job for you. Instead, they make accessible the information, products, and people you need to complete it for yourself. You feel capable of improving your own skills, which is exactly the feeling that searchers are seeking. ..more

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Current works in progress include Nokia “hot spots,” which are set up in hotels and airports to allow travelers to make wireless connections to the Internet and video telephones. The company emphasizes the product’s color and design and plans to introduce new models every year, employing the same strategy car manufacturers do with new styles each year. All of these approaches target searchers.

Looking forward, Nokia is betting that their search customers (or trendsetters, as this company calls them) will focus on the handset’s visuals as they tap into the device’s data capabilities that will link them to the Internet, word processing programs, a network diary, information services, e-commerce activities, and even allow them to view moving images. In the not too distant future, the handsets will enable traveling Nokia users to get news and information from home by downloading; say, a local newscast to the nearest television set. ..more

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Companies that have attained the status of market leaders are not content to rest on their laurels or on their existing products, nor should they be. They accept the unending responsibility of exploring uncharted terrain to imagine and design new products with original features and unique benefits. Market leaders are always thinking about the future, working to anticipate not-yet-recognized needs.

They also know that customers—especially searchers—are not necessarily looking for what they are selling. Often people want something that doesn’t yet exist, or they have a problem to which there is not yet a solution. Historically, market leaders made sure that their pipelines were filled with a steady stream of new technology, distinctive designs, and original gadgets. Today, a full pipeline is not enough. To satisfy searchers, market leaders must try to answer questions that have not yet been asked. ..more

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