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| Subject: Use Research To Find (Potential) Problems & Help People Solve/Avoid Them | |
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Author: Dennis S. Vogel |
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Date Posted: 20:17:30 12/24/07 Mon In reply to: Dennis S. Vogel 's message, "Be Sure Your Differentiator Makes The Right Difference" on 17:01:27 08/11/07 Sat If people have big screen TVs, it seems they’d waste their investment by watching streamed movies through their PCs. They can download movies with a computer, & watch those through a TV, but it requires a separate connection. It may require a different kind of TV &/or connecters/adapters. Some adapters need their own power sources, so using them can increase power consumption (higher bills) in addition to the price of new equipment. Since I, & others on average, have moved to different homes every 5 years or less, complex equipment require complex disconnection & packing, then unpacking & reconnection. Each time things can be lost or broken. Low-tech tape/DVD rental can be far less expensive & stressful. It’s hard to watch movies when parts are in various boxes or locations. After a long day of lifting & hauling, it’s nice to relax & be entertained, but entertainment won’t happen without the equipment being connected. For older computers, people have to upgrade equipment &/or software or buy a new computer to stream movies via the Internet & watch them through a TV. Who gets the higher priority to use a family computer & Internet connection—family members who want to download movies or those who want to do research or business? I can almost hear the arguments! There may be statistics about how much electricity a computer & monitor (possibly plus a TV) consume compared to a TV & VCR/DVD player, even a big screen TV. If customers use their vehicles to get tapes/DVDs from your store, it’ll consume energy too, but if they’re already doing some errands, commuting to or from work, etc. they won’t be using much extra. You can check web sites of electric utilities, Energy Star, Focus On Energy, etc. for statistics. You may have to experiment with search terms. If energy oriented sites don’t have advanced search abilities, you can copy & paste their URLs into a search engine’s advanced search pages, then choose search terms. Google & Yahoo! have advanced search pages these are their URLs - http://search.yahoo.com/search/options?fr=srch_more http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en Research staff in libraries can help you find things also. You can ask them in person, via phone or email. I think it may be worthwhile to use your marketing messages to re-orient people back to their TVs. They’re apt to get caught up in the novelty of using computers to watch movies & TV shows. But when they remember (are reminded) they paid big bucks for their TVs, it should jolt them. Since analog TVs will be outdated without converters, does it make sense to buy an expensive HDTV, then use a computer to watch movies & TV shows? Plus I wonder what movie & show streaming does for computer performance. It seems just about everything done in computers produces temp files. Those temp files don’t always disappear like temporary files should. Then they use hard drive capacity. Even those taking 0 kb are still in the hard drives & cause free space problems, if they supposedly don’t take space but are still there, programs can’t use that space. So, hard drives put programs & content in other places, then stuff (good & temp) is fragmented. Programs run slowly when hard drives search for scattered bits. People probably have defrag programs, but those require time. Defrag programs running in the background require CPU function. When CPUs are processing defragmenting, they can’t quickly process other programs. Defrag programs require some free space for sorting. If there’s not enough free space, these defrag programs won’t work. Even when people have big capacity hard drives, it can take a long time to get them defragmented. Temp files can be deleted, but the remaining files are still fragmented. Many people don’t know about or understand these (potential) problems. So, these problems aren’t fixed without disk utility programs &/or computer techs to fix them. You may be able to find information about this in computer books, magazines & web sites or by asking a computer tech. A computer tech may lend his/her identity & authority to your cause & provide credibility. In return, s/he will get some publicity. Other Problems & Customer Satisfaction You should use a Netflix free trial subscription to find potential problems. Then be sure your offers are better &/or don’t cause as many problems. Use whatever competitor drawbacks you can find--& CONFIRM--in your marketing messages. You’ll help people avoid problems. But even if you use these to overcome streaming movies, you’d still have DVD & videotape rental competitors to deal with. Find what you do or could do better than competitors. I included “& CONFIRM” because you may hear or read about a problem, but if it’s inaccurate or exaggerated, you could cause yourself more problems if you use it as a marketing point. If there’s a discussion forum about &/or for video stores, you should find those & find what people like & don’t like. If you send me an email request (your email address so I can send an article), I’ll send you a document featuring opinions about videotape & DVD sales. It applies to rental & streaming videos too. Since I got these with a news article, I don’t own the copyright, so I won’t post it. (My email address is in my sig file.) You could call other video stores & check for articles similar to what I’m offering you. Be careful about basing your marketing on these kinds of opinions too. It may seem like a lot of people agree about a “problem” but it could be the same person acting like multiple complainers. Which brings me to satisfying your customers—Are you sure you’ve lost customers to Netflix just because some prefer its service? Did you alienate people because of things you did or didn’t do? They may not have told you. Or they may have gotten distracted & forgotten about you. If you know who they are, offer them a free rental or something valuable, but inexpensive for you, if they’ll answer some questions for you. You can offer rewards from another business. Your business may be somewhat seasonal since movies have various themes. I haven’t checked into Netflix deeply (to find what Netflix does/could quickly start doing). Your competitive situation could change quickly. But Netflix doesn’t seem to have an exclusive, narrow specialty. Could you specialize in specific TV show DVDs or movies based in interesting locations or on historical events? Do you have original movies to complement remakes (Example- Pink Panther movies starring Peter Sellers for those who like the remake starring Steve Martin)? Maybe in winter, people would like to watch movies based in warm climates. On hot, humid days, people may want to watch shows about cool areas. Travel agents may refer customers to you. People, who want to travel, may want to know more about an area before going there. Some may not know where they want to travel & will watch place-based movies to learn about the culture or geography of various places. Are you close to hotels/motels or similar lodging places whose customers may want to watch movies other than what’s available on cable channels? Some people like to read the books movies are based on. Maybe people who like a movie will listen to the books on CDs or tapes. Could you find enough demand to stock these books, CDs & tapes, even if they’ve been used/pre-owned? Other Value-Added Specialties Can you afford to specialize in games or educational tapes/DVDs (maybe get referrals from teachers/professors)? Can you avoid charging late fees with a different twist? Have a tape/DVD exchange/club. When members are finished, they bring tapes/DVDs back so they can get something else. Until they return, they own the tapes/DVDs. They could pay a fee to get more or pay a membership fee to cover the use of a certain number of selections. You can specialize without getting rid of non-specialty products. Maybe you can find & successfully market videos about fixing & building things. To make lessons more interesting & sticky, educators can use TV shows, movies & maybe video games to demonstrate some concepts. TV show examples- MacGyver used psychology, chemistry & physics to escape, rescue others & stop enemies. The A-team used building & crafts/industrial arts skills plus psychology to save themselves & others. The X-files can easily tie in with behavioral & political science lessons. You could package movies & shows for educators. In May & June, ask them what they’ll be teaching in the next school year, then find what fits. If they don’t have money in the budget for these, you may work with parent-teacher associations/organizations to raise money. A way to do it is have promotions & pledge a percentage of membership/rental fees to your educational program. School related groups may get money from Campbell’s, General Mills & dairy companies by redeeming Box Tops For Education, soup can UPCs & milk jugs caps. Daily Lesson Plan The New York Times has lesson plans you & teachers can use as templates, here’s the URL- http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/lessons/index.html If you work with teachers to develop lesson plans, it’ll add value for professional teachers & home-schoolers. Dennis S. Vogel Your main job, as a marketer, is find problems & offer solutions or ways to avoid problems. I have suggestions in my free information web site & this forum. http://www.thrivingbusiness.lakefield.net/ http://www.voy.com/31049/ [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |
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