Situational marketing—Ice cream anyone?

Today, I saw an ice cream truck; the operator obviously swamped with business.  When the thermometer hits 100 degrees, and an ice cream truck rolls slowly down a residential street where families with young children occupy every house, it would be impossible to fail.  To repeat the same action in the dead of winter would be an exercise in futility and lead to certain failure.

Selling ice cream to children on a hot summer day requires no marketing and virtually no sales skill.  Just get the truck rolling in the right neighborhood. The truck, simply has to be visible and accessible.

Marketing financial services and products requires a bit more than selling ice cream on a hot day.  Yet, the same elements of marketing to a demand are crucial.  The current economic climate and the uncertainties about investments, have created a marketplace full of opportunity.  The difference is you do not have a rolling vending machine and customers lining the streets waiting for your arrival.

Take some time to consider what it is that you offer.  You offer the answer to the essential question on the minds of every parent of children who are buying ice cream this summer.  You’ve read about it in my previous posts: “Will we be all right?”  That question is related to the changing and uncertain world we are in.  The question is connected to what would happen to the children in the event of the death of one of the parents?  What will happen in the event of the inability to count on a company pension?  What about retirement savings and education funds?  Well, the “what ifs” go on and on.  You, my friend, have the answers, the experience, the products, and the wisdom to assure your clients that they will indeed “be all right.”

Just make sure that your version of your “ice cream truck” is not sitting by the roadside disabled with doubt and inaction.  Go out make something happen!