Just over a week into the new year, we saw GoPro flounder. There are multiple reasons for this, and probably countless articles talking about how the company could have avoided where it is today.
One such article had this interesting little sentence:
“Like Flip before them, they became a fad then a tool then a commodity finally leading to a battle that they were never born to win.”
“It’s a little dark to say that they were never born to win. We’d like to take a little more positive approach (new year, new us): you can go into battles and win. Amazon hasn’t taken over just yet.”
One note to add: In doing some trait analysis of the GoPro customer, some of the dominant traits indicate rare densities. Thus, limitations in total addressable market. Not everyone needs this and wants to do this. It is not a job to be done for everyone.
How can you win? Stop obsessing over slashing costs and being efficient. You can’t produce good marketing when you’re stressing over cost. Look at your customers again, past simple demographics. Think about who you are trying to attract, and who is actually your customer. You might be trying to go after suburban moms, but your customers are really urban males in their 20s (true story, different company).
Predictive analytics is young, but we believe its potential in segmenting customers based on quantifying customer delight and their personality traits. If you delight then, you don’t need to slash budgets.