Good Marketing, Bad Distribution

The other day we were shopping at one of the big stores, and I went on to pick up a bottle of skimmed milk; I was just checking the expiry date and other stuff when I found a little something I’m not used to finding on Tunisian products.
There was this little message informing customers that the same company also sold 0% Fat Yogurt with different flavors.
This isn’t a form of marketing you usually find on Tunisian products, even though I find it one of the most targeted, unobtrusive and interesting forms of advertising and marketing around because you’re talking directly to a customer who is surely interested in the other product you’re selling and who has already given his confidence to your company by choosing one of your products over the competition.

This is all great, it actually put a smile on my face seeing that Tunisians were getting smarter about marketing and advertising their products, and I went to check out the advertised product.

This is where they messed up whatever effort they made and advantage they got through their targeted marketing; the product was nowhere to be found, neither in that store not any other I’ve been to ever since.

So even though these guys have a great way to market their product to the right people in the right market segment, they fail to distribute their product well and lose everything they worked for, maybe even generating customers that are frustrated because of a product they haven’t even tried yet. That would mean that their good marketing push is actually generating the opposite effect to what anyone would wish for.

All this to say that one missing link in the chain is enough to spoil everything for the customer and the company, especially when that link is distribution.

So please, don’t market a product that doesn’t exist or is never available. It works against you and annoys the customers.