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jloughry | 7 years ago

From chaper 3 of Marketing That Works: How Entrepreneurial Marketing Can Add Sustainable Value to Any Sized Company by Lodish et al. (Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, 2007)

Many colleges and some upper socioeconomic high schools also bought the MINIVAC as an educational aid. However, no one in the third segment, the corporate sector, bought the product. The entrepreneur interviewed some target customers to try to find the problem. He found out very quickly. The typical description of the MINIVAC by the corporate types was: "Oh, that—it's just a toy!"

The entrepreneur was creative and he listened carefully. He also understood marketing. His next product was the same basic kit—with the switches upgraded to higher tolerances and the machine color changed from blue and red to gunmetal gray. The name was changed to the MINIVAC 6010 and he increased the price from $79.95 to $479. The MINIVAC 6010 sold very well to the corporate segment at $479.

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perl4ever|7 years ago

Well, that may be jumping to conclusions. Maybe the corporate types weren't reacting to the change in color at all. Maybe they were doing a rational cost benefit analysis - 6010 is 10 times better than 601, and 479 is only 6 times the price. Clearly the value proposition has been noticeably improved!