[The Law of Unpredictability] Companies must be ready and willing to adapt
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Implicit in most marketing plans is an assumption about the future. Yet marketing plans based on what will happen in the future are usually wrong [...] So what can you do? How can you best cope with unpredictability? While you can’t predict the future, you can get a handle on trends, which is a way to take advantage of change.
One way to cope with an unpredictable world is to build an enormous amount of flexibility into your organization. As change comes sweeping through your category, you have to be willing to change and change quickly if you are to survive in the long term.
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Ego is the enemy of successful marketing. Objectivity is what’s needed. When people become successful, they tend to become less ...
No matter what your product is, you are ultimately in the education business. Your customers need to be constantly educated about the many advantages of doing business with you, trained to use your products more effectively, and taught how to make never-ending improvement in their lives.
In strength there is weakness. Wherever the leader is strong, there is an opportunity for a would-be No. 2 to turn the tables [...] If [the company] wants to establish a firm foothold on the second rung of the ladder, [it] should study the firm above. Where is it strong? And how does [the company] turn that strength into a weakness?
[The challenger] must discover the essence of the leader and then present the prospect with the opposite. (In other words, it shouldn’t try to be better, but try instead to be different.)
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Aside from the fact that you can buy something for less, what does a sale say to a prospect? It says that [the company's] regular prices are too high. After the sale is over, customers tend to avoid a store with a “on sale” reputation.
(...) the key is to get the whole story into the headline but leave out just enough that people will want to click.