A marketing and awareness campaign can fail for many reasons.
If you have a product (or plant) that you are developing, one of your priorities should already be “how will this be promoted to the clients”. The Kevin Costner concept of “If we build it they will come” is utter rubbish!
If you do not tell clients about it – they will not buy it!
Its that simple!
A focus on the demand chain means considering those elements that affect your income… people who buy your products and plants. Without them there is no benefit in releasing new products or plants. Growing a new line of plants and putting it on the shelves does not create consumer desire. Think about this as if YOU were the consumer…
You walk into a nursery. You go to buy a plant or fertiliser. Do you choose the one you know, or the unkown new product/plant? Do you choose based on price or reputation or flashy colours? More than likely you will not buy something you have never heard of before as it is ‘un-tested’, ‘un-proven’ and not recognised.
Focus your profit at generating income… i.e. sales! Create a good campaign that captures a focused audience with dedicated interest in what you have to offer (eg. gardening audience if you are growing plants). Look for media that addresses your product/plant and your audience. It may be radio, television, magazine or online.
Most media companies now employ ‘fresh’ graduates who are assigned the task of organising marketing campiangs of cliints. With time-poor work conditions these young newbies have little understanding of horticulture and will rarely be interested in finding out the intricacies of the gardening public (what they read, what they listen to, what they watch). They are more likely to take the easy short-cut solution – what costs the cheapest. As we all know, cheap is not necessary the best… it your money so why waste it on mass media (eg Women’s Weekly, etc) when your audience of gardeners are more interested in listening to radio talk back or reading their favourite gardening magazine (eg. Your Garden, subTropical Gardening, etc).
The ‘Demand Chain’ makes your business grow by looking forward, the ‘Supply Chain’ keeps you from going under but looking backward at your business production costs. Both are important, but do you want to move forward and look back?
