John Linton We continue to struggle to find ways of maintaining a sensible position in providing ADSL2 plans that are competitively attractive yet do not lose us money in the current and likely near future marketplaces. We have looked at various ways of providing differentiators that would make sense to prospective buyers but have struggled to do so in marketplaces in which offerings from providers are increasingly 'identical' in price and base inclusions. Our current views are that we will not be able to make any radical changes but will have to resort to 'marketing' initiatives for the first time in our corporate 'life'. I have always abhorred the trickery/lies used by so many providers in presenting services based on wildly mis-representing the truth by omitting or obfuscating key 'negative' aspects of the services they were conning the customer into buying (I will not repeat my views about mobile telephony marketing). Perhaps a country that elects Kevin Rudd as prime minister defines why 'marketing' succeeds over substance here - and in many other places.
So I thought about combining the 'best' (perhaps that should be the worst?) of Dodo's ads/offers with the 'best' of TPG's offers to produce a 'super plan' that would blitz the market - or at least double our current sales. I came up with something like this:
80 gb peak/180 gb off peak for $A60.00 with FREE telephone line bundled with service
NO minimum spend on telephone calls
Excess usage at $3.00 per gbyte
NO set up fee
24 month contract
$150.00 early termination fee
Off Peak period - 3 am to 9 am (or some other period entirely but 6 to 12 hours)
....or some variations of such a plan....maybe a $30 a month plan with 1 gb of downloads and perhaps some naked versions along similar lines.
Alternatively we could go down the current customer reward path of providing $100.00 - $150.00 bonuses to current customers who sign up new ADSL2 users with the 'sign up bonus' split between the referrer and the referee (free activation to the referee and the balance to the referrer).....or something more radical....once you get in to the swing of this way of offering services then the sky's the limit.
With the new ADSL2 offerings from Telstra due to re-define the marketing standards for the Australian communications industry just 'around the corner' it seems that it is past time for Exetel to change from substance to ephemera and from no surprises to marketing mist (if not going as far as fog as so many providers do). I have no idea what will transpire over the remaining days of July but it seems likely that there will be some more changes to 'head line' rates and 'bundles' before the 'ides' of August so we will 'keep our powder dry' until then (don't you love marketing talk). It's a whole new world once you become 'inventive' and take your eyes off conservative ways of looking at running a business.
Any way - if anyone has any brilliant marketing ideas - please let me know - I don't think I have the kind of imagination that is suited to marketing methodologies.
Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2010
ABN 350 979 865 46