Find Marketing Role Models

Recently one of my favorite bloggers, David Aaker, wrote an interesting post titled "Marketing Advice that (Almost) Always Works - Solving the NFL Attendance Problem."  His primary point is that when trying to solve a marketing problem, or a business problem for that matter, it's important to look at companies who have faced similar problems and adapt what they did to your own business.  Find Marketing role models.

Furthermore, it's important that you don't look only at businesses like yours.  A business that sells a completely different product to a completely different customer may have a great solution to a shared problem.  You can identify their solution and adapt it to your context.

All of this may seem obvious, but his example is interesting and worth thinking about.  The NASCAR experience draws hundreds of thousands of hardcore fans each year - even though it's easier, cheaper, and likely a better view of the race on TV.  NASCAR enhances the experience in ways that add value to attendees that cannot possibly be achieved on TV.  For example, attendees can listen in on the driver/pit-crew conversations.  NASCAR has solved the attendance problem by making the in-person experience uniquely valuable and compelling. The NFL should take a lesson from NASCAR to solve it's declining attendance problem.  That is, the NFL needs to adapt the in-stadium experience so that the benefits of attending are strong enough to compel fans to get off the couch and to come to a game.

The important questions: What problem is your business facing? Who else has that problem (remember to look outside your industry)? How have they solved it? How can you adapt their solution to your business?

Seems like an obvious problem-solving technique - but a very important one - find a Marketing role model.