Whether you are marketing on-line or off-line, your potential customers are scared, scarred, and skeptical. Consumers, today, are quite resistant to sales messages.

In the mid 70’s, a store could run a “10% off” sale and people would flock in. Then the big stores got into the discounting mentality. Now it is common to see “70% off” sales - especially in jewelry. The consumer is not too long a fool. These promotions do not produce the wanted response anymore.

Repeated, high powered sales events create a downward spiral. Eventually you cannot offer a big enough “deal” to get the public excited. The big three car makers played this game for three years. By January 2006 they found themselves in deep financial trouble. They had borrowed customers from the future by offering a bigger, better sale every couple months. It is a deep grave from which to crawl out. (more…)