As you recently discovered in part one of this series, the manufacturers of “Icy Hot” originally used some savvy think outside the box marketing strategies, in order to take a struggling start up and ultimately turn into an incredibly profitable cash cow! And while there are several admirable marketing lessons to be learned for sure. This follow up post will focus on at least three more.
That are extremely relevant to today’s extremely competitive business environment. That can and should be a tool in your current marketing arsenal.
A Powerful Marketing Lesson From The Past Helps You Map Out A Profitable Plan For The Future!
The three marketing lessons can and should serve as a simple blueprint for any serious entrepreneur going forward.Keep in mine, Icy Hot went on to be acquired by a major Pharmaceutical (after) they grossed eight figures, so it’s not like they needed any help marketing their product! These three illustrations, are only meant as a back drop against their success. To spot highlight “how” much latitude there really is once focus on the overall marketing process and not just on individual marketing activities!
1.) Marketing lesson # one: Once Icy Hot was an established retail cash cow, they automatically gained some serious marketing leverage. For ex; since they initially were allowing their well placed joint venture partners to keep the lion’s share of the gross profits on that all important very first sale, in order to net the remaining two.
Icy Hot reps were able to approach major advertising players like the Wall St. journal and USA Today etc, and basically offering them double the gross profit!
By allowing them to make the lions share of the gross profit off the first two sales, and they basically netted the lions share off that all important third sale. “Why” you skeptically ask? For that all important market perception factor!Huh?
Think about about “how’ much more they can (and did) ultimately boos their long term sales, whenever they ran huge full page display ads in other prominent sports and medical niche magazines, that read “As seen in the Wall st. journal!”
Or their radio ads could boldly announce the same! You get the point right! That basically signals to the general public, this product must be totally cool! After all, if it’s being advertised in the Wall St. Journal or USA Today etc!
2.) Marketing lesson # two: Remember, after the first sale, the insert included with the customers order, directed them to make their future purchases from Icy Hot headquarters directly.
Which meant, they were (and they) did build this incredibly huge and extremely valuable list of highly responsive buyers! Literally for pennies on the dollar! Their JV partners generated some previously undiscovered revenue and Icy Hot identified a repeat customer!
3.) Marketing lesson # three: And guess “how” Icy Hot was literally able to millions more to their bottom line (for virtually) zero added upfront cost! They started strategically added various piggyback insert offers inside their outgoing offers to their repeat customers!
And they started routinely banking anywhere from 25-50% of the gross revenue off that initially sale! And best part was, they had no advertising cost to deduct from these additional millions in revenue! Or no fulfillment cost to deduct!
But guess what else happened! Their stock price bargain to soar, because of the additional gross profit added to their bottom line! Yep! The real point here entrepreneur, is simply this! There’s always a valid marketing lesson or two, to be discovered whenever you examine major marketing success of the past! Don’t you agree?
Please list at least two simple spin off concepts (in the comments section below) that you can apply to your business, product or service in the next 30 days or less!
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