Mediocre Product + Great Sales Potential

While what you say is true, a good marketer can find a way to present the product to the same people in a way that makes it more desirable, a good marketer's time and energy are better spent promoting a good product to an already hungry-for that product crowd.


There was a lady a while back that sold a book with entirely blank pages to women. My understanding is that it sold well for a while. The reason: The title of the book was What Men Know, or something along those lines.


The person(s) who wrote 50 Shades of Grey sold really well for a while, then really well for another while, then really well for another while.... All because there was a hungry market for it. It is an excellent product, from a titillation point of view, mediocre from a high-art point of view.


The thing is, as a marketer, you should choose well.



There are tons of items in my life where an average product is all I need or want. A good marketer will find me and people like me and put the product in front of me / us at the right time.


Then, there are items where I want quality... As defined by me.


A good marketer will put the product in front of me at the right time pointing out how it fits my definition of quality.


A good marketer will never spend effort getting me to buy a Bugatti Veyron. Not because I do not want one, not because I do not think they're quality cars, but because I cannot afford it and, if I could, I still would not pay that much for a car. (I know, if I managed to make $2,000,000 a month for enough months my ideas would change and I might buy one, for now, a good marketer will never consider me.)


I will give you just one more example though I have 17 metric tonnes of the stuff: Once upon a time, a bad marketer tried to convince me to join a book club. I would receive a month's worth of reading without having to go to a store and touch a book. The not go into stores and touch book was the main benefit presented.


I love going into book stores and touching books, picking up one, reading a couple of paragraphs, putting it down if not interesting, etc.


His idea was that I would save time. Think of what I could do with that time, he said. I thought. I did not find a better use (at the time). Now, there are, now and again, months when I just cannot go to a book store because I have better things to do.


He just could not grasp... He and so many other people he knew loved the idea.


I also objected to the idea of having someone random pick out books I would read...



He said, Oh, but they choose from different genres... I can do that on my own and do a good job.


Not saying there's nobody who cannot pick books for me to read, just that paying extra to have someone choose books I would not enjoy is not a benefit for me, even if each month at least one book would be a great one.


In other words, again, a good marketer can do what you say but it's often not the best use of that marketer's time.


PS Thanks for the post; it got me thinking.

A good marketer can promote anything effectively. That doesn't mean they will. Why promote mediocre when there is quality available?

It takes the same amount of effort.

In my opinion doesnt matter , a marketar needs to bring value to the clients .I am not agree that its a quakity to know how to sell mediocre products . As an example if i would be a customer and the best marketar in the world it would sell me a shity product i will be very angry .

why do i think of the George Forman grill and many other kitchen gadets you see on tv or infomercials.

or a 9 dollar hamburger where you then charge 75 cents for each piece of cheese ..or pizza where you charge a dollar for each extra topping .

so you sell the mediocre product that has a pretty low profit marging and try and tack on extras that have realitivly high margins

Surprisingly, the market for "mediocre" products actually is far more lucrative than "best", "top quality" or even "luxury".

This is true in nearly every niche, ie automobiles, real estate, stock market, groceries, industrial supplies, services, IM training, etc.

Looking at the popularity of discount stores, used product outlets online, knockoffs, auctions, etc., we see there is a huge market for crap.

So it really comes down to how marketers can frame their offers, set expectations, and target their audience.

There is a whole lot of crap being hyped up as "top quality", which only attracts prospects with higher expectations only to be disappointed.

Personally, I've been selling a whole lot of "crap" (shit I would never buy) for more than 20 years, because it's what my customers want, and they know exactly what they're getting.

Years ago, I bought several pallets of what I thought were iphones from China. Back then, I didn't know any better, but these were cheap "iphone" look alikes.

They weren't bad, but certainly could not be sold as genuine iphones.

What I did was advertise them in classified ads in newspapers and magazines (Joe Karbo style) as "Guaranteed Genuine Counterfeit" iphones.

Sold out out in less than 3 months and made a killing.

If I had tried to hype them up as "quality" iphones, I would have faced massive disappointment, refunds, or worse.

Effective marketing (for anything) is framing your offer attractively and setting expectations with your targeted prospects.

So often marketers forget that people don't buy "products". They buy what they perceive as value compared to the price.

A marketer doesn't have to sound so sinister as that. A marketer always has a target audience in which he or she thinks that could benefit them. If he or she is able to show the value of that product, even if it's mediocre, then that's fine as long as he or she didn't lie about anything.