Can we all just agree that these phrases mean nothing and don’t tell you jack all about the product?
1) By snowboarders for snowboarders
Sorry but the fact that snowboarders are involved with your company does not impress me, especially not when 5000 other small companies who make similar products have the same slogan as you.
Congrats, you snowboard and you decided to start a company. You now join the same group as the other 500 people emailing me to promote their random snowboard product because it’s ‘by snowboarders for snowboarders’.
I could bake some cupcakes today and say they are ‘by snowboarders for snowboarders’ but it doesn’t mean that my cupcakes taste delicious (although they’d definitely be delicious because I’m a bamf at baking cupcakes).
2) Made in USA
Firstly, it’s great if you want to support your local economy. Good for you for making jobs in your country and if that’s how you’re marketing it, then awesome and I’m all for you doing that.
However, I hate seeing snowboard companies market ‘Made in USA’ implying that it means their product is automatically high quality because it was made in the USA.
Making gear locally doesn’t mean your products are instantly better than foreign made products. Last I checked, a lot of people drove Japanese and European made cars because they were more reliable.
How about the marketing stuff that really matters?
I don’t care who made your gear (within reason) and I don’t care even if you make your gear in Nepal.
Heck, I might prefer if my gear was made by Nepalese sherpas climbing Mt. Everest while crafting my gear inside a snow cave at 8,000 meters above sea level… that would be kinda cool… but I’m off topic right now.
Why not advertise the stuff that really matters. Repeating marketing slogans that everyone knows means nothing just makes me think less of your company.
I’d be 100 times more impressed by a snowboard company if they told me “We respond to every customer email within 5 minutes, have a guaranteed 1-2 week warranty service and anyone who needs help has access to our local phone support team 24/7″ instead of “Our gear is made by actual snowboarders!”
- Jed
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Gear needs to be made by competent people and good and well maintained machines, that’s the most important thing quality wise. And service is as important as quality. Nowadays every (big) manufacturer needs to come down from his pedestal and infiltrate more in the local shops at customer level. In stead of always referring to things like “register on our website for warranty”, or “use the contact form where we will probably lose the e-mail”, etc.
Hey Jed,
I completely understand what you are talking about, especially with my relationship marketing background. That’s why when I started looking for my gear I found a snowboard company from my own state that I have found an absolute love for snowboarding with, Never Summer Industries. Not only did they personally help me find a board for the ride style that I was looking for, but their boards also come with a three year warrantee. And to top it all off, last year they produced a “brothers in arms board” made specifically for military active duty and veterans that gave proceeds back to a military foundation. To me their quality both in product and in customer satisfaction is unprecedented and that is why I continually stick to them as a loyal consumer.