Ping Pong (Marketing) Anyone?
 
What is the world’s 2nd most popular sport (in terms of players) after soccer?
 
Good guess: it’s ping pong--now officially called table tennis, a summer Olympic sport that is popular worldwide. It’s the wonderfully fun game that I grew up playing in my basement with my dad and brother—and have many a fond memory for. Did you know that the name “ping pong” actually preceded the term “table tennis?” Only because Parker Brothers bought the commercial rights to “ping pong” decades ago, did the sport’s official name mutate into “table tennis.”  But to most people, it’s still “ping pong”--which brings us to this week’s Debunker.
 
Ping Pong Test
 
OK, this is a test, and I want you to send me an email and vote YES if you knew there is actually such a thing or vote NO if you did not know there is such a thing: a ping pong (or table tennis) robot sort of like a tennis ball machine that you may have seen shooting tennis balls across the net. Truthfully, did you know there was such a thing or not? Vote NOW!
 
Well, there is. I’ve played ping pong a long time but had no idea that ping pong had a parallel machine to tennis until several weeks ago. The global leader in this very unusual niche business is located just outside of Nashville in Gallatin, TN: Newgy Industries’ Robo-Pong ping pong machine is well known among competitive table tennis types globally, and many top players use it as a practice tool to hones their games, improve their reaction times and hand eye coordination, and enhance their stamina. Robo-Pong can shoot ping pong balls at you at over 70 miles an hour, and  players of any skill level can  easily control the speed, spin, oscillation, etc. 
 
Newgy Goes After the Ping Pong Crowd--with an Additional Web Site
 
Newgy asked NoSpin Marketing (working with Newgy’s long time web design firm Missingink) to help them figure out how to go after the “ping pong” market worldwide. They’ve sold thousands of their “Robo-Pong” robots over the years—but a small percentage of the total to recreational ping pong players--versus the more serious table tennis crowd. That’s because the market they’ve gone after in print advertising, trade shows, athletic sponsorships, distributor arrangements, their current www.newgy.com web site and other marketing initiatives has been competitive “table tennis” players. Newgy decided to more aggressively go after the basement/rec room ping pong players, and yesterday we put up a new site co-developed by NoSpin Marketing and Missingink at www.robopong.com.
 
YOU CANNOT BE TOO EXPLICIT ON YOUR WEB SITE – STARTING WITH YOUR HOMEPAGE -- WHOM YOU ARE SELLING YOUR STUFF TO
 
One of the worst deficiencies of most sites (and other marketing for that matter) is that companies assume that you (as a potential consumer) should automatically know whether or not YOU should buy their respective products and services. Sometimes that’s pretty straight forward because the product or service is literally for anyone – or very obviously for only one, very specific type of audience. But more often than not companies have multiple products/services that have multiple “sweet spot” markets—and are very hazy about who should buy those products/services—and why. 
 
I’m not going to even bother debunking the “We can sell anything (in our industry to anybody” marketing strategy, because outside of a few exceptions like Walmart etc, it’s just plain nuts. By clearly defining your audiences, you don’t lose potential customers, you get into more prospects’ heads. So on your homepage, state succinctly whom you are selling to and illustrate that with benefits (vs features—do that elsewhere). One way to make your messages more clear to a particular audience is to develop a new web site directed specifically at that group.
 

The new www.RoboPong.com Site for Newgy Industries

 
The new www.robopong.com site is specifically targeted at the general “ping pong” audience, globally. Same ping pong robots, accessories, and other equipment—and same prices as on the www.newgy.com site (not yet renovated)--but clear messages directed at the basement/rec room ping pong types. The new site is search engine optimized with content, title tags, etc, and we have a few other things to do still. But we are definitely revving up pay-per-click on Google and Overture. Newgy Industries’ peak season has always been late in the year, and that may likely continue. But we’d like to both increase and “smooth out” the annual purchasing. Also, Newgy hopes to be advertising on TV for the first time this fall/winter on ESPN with a key business partner. And so we’ll see what happens…probably too early to judge until early next year.
 
And hey, if you’re looking for a great gift idea this holiday season for that sports aficionado who enjoys ping pong—and would like a partner….anytime…even without having to have a partner--check out Robo-Pong from Newgy. A very cool gift idea for that sports aficionado who loves ping pong.
 
P.S. More next Debunker, but if you'd like my free, updated Marketing SWOT tools for 2005, please email me.
 
NoSpin Marketing
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