Blog Post #1: The Prevalence of Marketing Myopia

I recently read fellow blogger Michael Hyatt's book, Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World, which discusses how in marketing we all need to create and effectively manage the what and the who. Hyatt describes the what as being “a compelling product” and the who has being “a significant platform” (Hyatt 22). To Hyatt, a significant platform essentially means a stage or pedestal that you have to showcase your product on so that you may get your word out. The platform, for instance could be a blog. The what, on the other hand, is a product (anything that you are trying to sell) that should blow away the customer’s expectations. Hyatt explains that you should focus on creating a “wow” product in order to capture and contain the contemporary customer’s short attention span (Hyatt 26).

This idea of a “wow” product got me thinking. The other day in my marketing class we discussed the idea of marketing myopia. Marketing myopia is when a company focuses more on a product and its features than the overall experience that they are looking to deliver to the customer with the product. In short, marketing myopia is when a company focuses on products rather than customers. So while Hyatt is correct that a “wow” product is necessary to capture and contain a customer’s attention span, you should not focus solely on the product’s features itself. I am not saying that Hyatt is wrong, because he is not. He just did not explicitly mention how it is vital to not place too much focus on a product’s features. His book was about creating a platform for your product in order to create the overall customer experience, so in a way he indirectly approached the topic.

When thinking about marketing myopia and how to avoid it, the Boston Red Sox come to mind. For those of you who are not sports fans, the Boston Red Sox are a Major League Baseball team that play in Boston, MA at Fenway Park (built in 1904). The Red Sox come to mind because they, along with many other professional sports teams, make their product about the experience. For the Red Sox, their main product is the game itself. The Red Sox have 81 home games a year with nearly a 40,000 tickets sold every game. Now, the Red Sox could focus on just selling the tickets by flaunting how good their team is and then stop at that once the tickets are sold. That would be an example of marketing myopia. They would be focusing on the features of the game, not the experience that they are trying to deliver to customers. The Red Sox focus on the experience that they are seeking to deliver by doing things like creating promotions like Maine Day, where people from the state of Maine are welcomed into Fenway Park with some discounts as well as a chance to win some stuff (like memorabilia). The Red Sox take a personalized approach by allowing people to come onto the field for some special events, playing specific music to create a warm and friendly atmosphere, and getting their players involved with the fans and the Boston community. Focusing on these things allow the Red Sox to build a loyal fan base who will come back to Fenway Park for years to come. If they stopped at ticket sales, maybe customers would not feel so welcome. Maybe they would think, “This was fun, but I do not know if I would do it again.” Creating a positive product experience for customers and avoiding marketing myopia creates a situation where customers will value the experience enough to pay for it again and again.

Think about all the products that you know and love. These products can by physical products, services, experiences, and more. What do they do for you? In all likelihood, they create some sort of positive experience for you or create some sort of benefit for you. They are something that does not have pointless features that are interesting but useless in the end. They may have all the bells and whistles, but they are likely all bells and whistles that you need or want. This is likely because the company that produced the product stayed away from marketing myopia, they sought to create a positive customer experience to go along with a great product. They did not merely create a cool product without a customer experience in mind. So when you are thinking about creating a product, think about the experience you are looking to deliver.

References:

Hyatt, Michael S. Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2012. Print.