Marketing and selling, but delivering? Delta spends a tremendous amount of money marketing their offering through a website redesign, on-hold messages, pamphlets, billboards, and radio spots. Why? Justify higher ticket prices? Retain its base of customers? Encourage new customers to choose Delta over low-cost carriers?
I have not seen higher ticket prices at Delta as compared to archrival low-cost carrier Airtran.
Therefore, the justification must be to fill seats. Keep talking about how dreamy it is to fly Delta. But when anyone who hears/reads/views/clicks any of the facets of the marketing campaign actually flies Delta, the dreamy feeling they have is quickly sucked out the cabin door.
What Delta continues to deliver is a commodity: a cheap airline seat. Although their marketing campaign suggests that Delta is different, the product/service they provide has no differentiation from any other carrier. (After all, when I’m on an Airtran flight, they offer satellite radio for my dreams. Airtran actually delivers more.)
I am not writing this to rant about Delta. I continue to choose Delta (even though they continue to fall short of expectation.) But, they have taught me a valuable lesson.
I would like to suggest that it is better to not market at all than to market a product or service or feeling that you cannot deliver. Failing to deliver stirs negative emotions. Negative emotions over time influence purchasing decisions. When offered a viable alternative, the purchaser will choose against the provider that is associated with negativity. So, a competitor like AirTran has a much easier time enticing travellers to switch.
The challenge for any organization is to align marketing, sales and operations so that they all market, sell and produce the same thing. Otherwise, the purchaser will at some point, through disappointment, choose a different provider. (After all, I expected a dreamy experience on the Delta flight, but the airplane was the same old plane with the same old boring reduced service.) The marketers will wonder where the market share went. The salesmen will lose respect in the marketplace. The operations team will blame the marketers and sellers for reduced volume. All will end up with reduced pay (or pink slips) and a struggling employer.
Make your ads slick, your website fascinating, your message compelling, your buildings gleaming, your pitches flawless, but if you deliver less in the actual service or product you provide, you’ll continue to watch the backs of your customers as they choose other providers.
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