My business partner Bronwen and Nick had their second child a few months ago. Talking to her about the activities of her baby and four year old I realised we can increase our marketing skills learning from children.
Here are some marketing tips that we have learnt from the two kids:
Ask questions
Children especially when they are young ask a lot of questions when they want to know about something. In marketing we sometimes forget to do this so we assume we have all the information we need about our customers, competitors and the market we compete in.
Only by asking questions and continually gathering information can we really start to focus on what is important for our business to develop.
Be curious
As they are growing up children are very curious about new things they discover they can do such as walking, talking or riding a bike. In marketing we sometimes forget to be curious and try different ways to grow our business or increase the relationship with our customers
Have some fun
Children are generally happy and laugh a lot. In these times if you can laugh then it clears your head from the worries and you can usually achieve better results with your small business marketing.
Forget the new toys
Their attention span especially when they are young is very short and perhaps that is why they want to play with a different toy after a couple of days.
In marketing this actually can be a trap as it is often tempting to jump and start implementing a new marketing tactic just because it looks and sounds exciting which may not be the case. Remember putting a plan in place at the start of the year always helps you avoid these traps.
Keep it simple
The simple things such as a saucepan and wooden spoon can bring endless enjoyment (although not for the parents). In marketing sometimes the simple marketing strategies and tactics can get us better results with fewer costs.
What marketing tips can you share that you have learnt from children?
Try everything to find what you like and what you are good at. My niece and nephew and very sporty, but have played almost every sport going.
Having tried lots they then found they liked some a lot more than others. It was not necessarily what they thought they would like most that they actually enjoyed or excelled at most. They had to try before they really knew.
When I read about the attention span of a child, what I related to is how marketers need to understand how small an attention span their customers/prospects have. You better pique their interest in 20 seconds what you can do for them, otherwise they are going to be tuned out. Just like how a child is distracted by the number of toys he/she has access to, consumers are getting bombarded by marketers that they are tuning themselves out to a whole lot of stuff.
Sometimes you do have to try different things especially when deciding what businesss to set up.
Gopal you make a really good point and it seems that the attention span of customers is getting shorter all the time.