Do you have 5 year old or 9 year old marketing?

My daughters will illustrate.

I asked them both how they would get someone to buy a toy.

This is what the five year old said:

Mommy can you please buy it?

I said that might not work. So what would be another option?

She said:

Mommy can you please, please buy it?

The nine year old said this:

First you have to make a good toy. Because it’s cheap, people will get mad and sue you.
Then you have to tell them all the great things about it and why it’s wonderful. Don’t make it too expensive.
Then you have to get them really excited by telling them the cool things it does for them.
Make the commercial colorful, interesting and realistic.

So which kind of marketing do you have?

Please, please, please give me money. Pretty please. (Repeat often.)

Or: We have really amazing programs, here is why they are interesting and here’s why you should care.

Posted by on 09/24 at 06:07 PM

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Comments

HAH!

Hi Katya. I’ve been reading your blog for a long time now but just now moved to comment.

What a great point! And told in such a funny and memorable way.

I’m imagining the conversations around your dinner table with your daughters. Thanks for sharing a bit from your life to illustrate one of your key messages.

Best,

Dan

Posted by Dan Moore on 09/25 at 08:09 AM

Thanks Dan. Out of the mouths of babes!

Posted by on 09/25 at 08:48 AM

Hi Katya,

The kids’ ability to cut through the clutter and get right to the point never ceases to amaze me J. And how big of a difference just 4 short years age difference make. I consider my marketing efforts to be somewhere in between and I guess I should be reading your blog more frequently.

Have a great day!

Spencer

Posted by Spencer on 09/25 at 09:44 AM

Katya,

I have a 5-year old son. He does what Seth Godin spamming, which is what most non-profits have done for 100 years:

He will tell me over and over again: “If you buy me the transformer robot, I’ll really, really, really love you.”

I respond by reminding him that conditional love is NOT remarkable. If he really, really, really wants to get results, he should consider approaching me with UNconditional love, which is remarkable.

But, because he is five, he usually replies up with: “Yeah, but if you buy me the transformer robot, I’ll really, really, really love you.”

John
CoorporateDollar.Org

Posted by John Haydon on 09/25 at 11:45 AM

Hmmm...I asked my daughter (18 months) and just got “DA...DE...DA...DE"… ;->

Thanks for a great analogy and insightful relation to the topic at hand!

This is why I keep checking and commenting.

Posted by on 09/25 at 11:50 AM

Great post Katya!

What I really love is that your nine-year-old put the elements of marketing in the right order. You need a good product FIRST. If you don’t have this covered, your promotion isn’t going to get very far.

Donors and those who fund non-profit services and programs are very sophisticated today. You better know why your program/service is worthy of their attention. It’s not enough to be a good cause. You need to have a solid way to address that cause.

Posted by Deborah Zanke on 09/26 at 02:13 PM

Katya,

Reading this post again enabled me to pick out something very important: Your daughters really demonstrated the number one difference between “great marketing” and “bad marketing”. Your eldest daughter had the keen insight to be very customer-centric in her “marketing plan”. This is great marketing.

Bad marketing on the other hand is focused on the non-profit - what essentially amounts to begging. This “bad marketing” practice, unfortunately is still the norm for many non-profits.

Have a great night.

John

Posted by John Haydon on 09/28 at 09:03 PM

Katya,
I think you’ve hit it right on the head here. Marketing is something I’ve always had problems with and I can honestly say that for the most part I have been in the “5 year old marketing” area, but after reading your article I am working hard to improve myself into the 9 year old realm.

Thank you for the great article, it was a great eye opener for me and I hope for others as well.
-Kevin

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