Teachers open the door…
An interesting Chinese proverb caught my eye from the tab of my tea bag this morning. “Teachers open the door, but you must enter it by yourself.”
This is interesting from two levels. The first is how similar it is to a marketing ‘proverb’ that I heard recently, from Neil Armstrong at Cre8ive Wisdom, I am not sure if I can credit it fully to Neil, but that’s where I heard it first:
“Marketing opens the door to opportunity; sales welcome the opportunities in and close the door behind them.”
Good marketing is of course a lot more than just opening the door to opportunity; however, it is a very good analogy for marketing’s key role and its distinction from sales.
On the other level the use of the tab for an interesting read is a very simple and effective example of marketing’s other role, to reinforce relationships with existing customers. That extra little bit of thought as to how to make the tea bags different, reinforces my relationship with the brand increasing the likelihood that I will buy them again and will be prepared to pay a bit extra for them. Plus the fact that I enjoy the teabags and no other company makes them, will probably help as well…
Its good to know that an extra little bit of marketing effort is appreciated.
If you are interested the tea bags are Good Earth Organic White Tea with citrus. It’s the first time I’ve bought them so it’ll be interesting to see what other proverbs they have in store.
