Marketing!?

I recently stumbled across a marketing blog that was titled “How selflessness can help your business”. (Here’s the link to check it out for yourself http://ittybiz.com/how-selflessness-can-help-your-business/)It caught my attention right away, mainly because I think Johnny Truant makes an excellent point here.

Reading this blog reminded me of the idea of ‘sustainable competitive advantage’, the notion that in order to succeed, a company or a business must have one thing/ some thing they can offer customers, that they can sustain for a long time. This article is not necessarily talking about “good customer service” or “good reliable supply chain” per se, but it’s more leaning towards the idea of giving back, focusing on the you and not the me for once, even along the lines of  helping charities and being a good guy/gal etc.

Like Johnny Truant mentions, it doesn’t take much to help out a charity, volunteer and help out under privileged  children, donate a percentage of your proceeds– if not, you can even offer a few free products or services to consumers.

Why may this work?

Given our options in this world currently, I as a consumer, would so much rather shop with someone who GENUINELY *important factor here, or else you’d be called a “transparent asswipe” according to Johnny* wants to help out, wherether that may be his favorite charity, or hospital or a third world country. Selfless actions do come through, and that could easily be made into a “sustainable competitive advantage” for ones business.

There is one thing that hasn’t been mentioned in this blog though that I find very important:

Selfless acts will not necessarily increase your sales if the service or product you are trying to sell is way overpriced than your competitions, given that they are substitutes for one another.  As a consumer, I would rather pay less and donate to someone/somewhere myself than paying times and a half more and have you donate 10% of that.  Also, the product or service will have to be able to be “equal” or subsitutes in consumers’ eyes.  If I am looking for nice brand name jeans, I will unfortunately not settle for Costco jeans, even though you may volunteer in your spare time.