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... make offers that fail to motivate customers. Online marketers quickly learned the value of offering "free shipping." That was a tipping point for customers. If the price was right, free shipping helped get the order. The same holds true of Internet service; whether at a coffee shop, an airport or a hotel, why pay for it when somewhere it's available free? After years of piling on "cash incentives," auto manufacturers called a halt when they lowered sticker prices. But when gasoline hit $3 a gallon, they hauled out a new round of bigger-than-ever discounts. At the same time, Toyota drew on its perceived value and quality strategy to attract buyers; this offers a good example of a customer-focused approach, rather than one that's nothing more than an inventory reduction ... Solstice, the sleek, two-seater sports car from Pontiac that weighs in at $2K. Both the design and the price get rave reviews, but experts question whether it will make the hearts of the young and the would-be young go pitter-pat. "Like the other GM sports cars, it comes to market a tad underpowered," writes one auto reviewer. "It feels rather tepid under normal driving." With the Miata from Mazda as the model, why wouldn't GM give it their all? Just the words "underpowered" and "tepid" are enough to drive would-be Solstice admirers to a Miata. These marketing missteps could have been avoided by having a Bruce McLain, who would have asked, "Who's going to make the coffee? Have we asked all of the right questions ...

... halt for more than a month to meet the deadline. The plan calls for a newsletter four times a year. But it never happens. More money has been wasted. 12. Be sure your direct mail looks like junk mail. If it looks like junk, it is junk. Yet companies continually insist on proving this point. Here's how to break the junk mail habit: When a pile of mail arrives on Monday morning, go through it carefully. Think about what you keep and what you immediately throw away. With this in mind, why do so many firms think they can beat the odds and send out stuff that's destined to wind up in the wastebasket? It's just another way to waste more money. All this reveals a lack of respect for your product, your ... ineffective! 4. Duplicate exactly what your competition is doing. When it comes to stealing marketing ideas, some businesses rival the CIA. They know exactly what the competition is doing almost before it happens. They consider aggressive marketing to be cutting the bad guys off at the pass. We know how to beat them to the punch, ' they say. Why would anyone want a competitor to drive a company's marketing strategy? Again, it happens every day. One company offers a rebate and everyone falls into line. 5. Expect huge results from a tiny budget. There's a certain marketing mindset: Send out a mailing, and someone will conclude that there should be at least a 25% response! On what basis? How good was the list? How do we know it ...

... . Building Relations Within Your Industry Trade publications are the primary vehicle for public relations within any industry. The insurance industry is filled with trade publications, ranging from four-page newsletters to glossy magazines. But how many of you have a list of all pertinent publications, their addresses, phone and fax numbers, and names of editors and key reporters? If you don't have these things, go through that pile of magazines in the corner of your office and begin entering all this information into a computer database. Once you've completed that task, don't pat yourself on the back too many times because there's more to do. Call each publication and talk with the publisher or editor. In many of the smaller publications, the publisher is the editor and often the writer. With larger publications, the publisher ... industry-intensive nature of trade releases) . After all, you never know when an editor or a newscaster will need to fill some space and your release just happens to be handy. The best approach to the general public is to supply items of general interest to your community. Topics such as home safety, personal safety, fire prevention, insurance savings, insuring the teenage driver, and senior citizen driving tips are just a few of many, many topics that can be addressed in a press release. The trick is to get it printed! That takes us back to the basics: 1. Start a database with the address, phone, fax, editor, and writer listings for all news media in your community. Start with your daily newspapers, expanding to local radio and television stations ...

...to the season of the year in a big pile of similar forms. Discount any claims ...