Website Marketing Plan News, October 1, 2002

This weekend was “Family Weekend” at Mizzou, where my daughter is a freshman. We skipped football but managed to have a good time anyway J - and stumbled across a business strategy lesson as well.

The lesson is disguised as a fun corn maze at Shryocks Callaway Farms near the University (Mizzou’s mascot is a tiger - hence, the tiger head.). The Shryocks began planning the maze last year and have it open for business through the 2002 growing season. They run a real farm, so when the time comes the Shryocks will harvest the corn and sell it. For now, they charge admission to the tune of $6.00 a person. As an added incentive to guests, each person who finds the six checkpoints placed throughout the maze (without using the map) gets an entry into a drawing for a free bicycle.

We can all learn a strategic lesson from the Shryocks: They’ve found a way to generate incremental revenue by expanding use of an existing asset. Under normal circumstances the corn field would sit idle throughout the growing season, earning nothing while the crops grow. This year - in addition to yielding a cash crop - the corn field generates revenue all Summer and into Fall.

The article…

Kenny Love shows us how to apply AIDA to classified advertisements in “Constructing Classified Advertisements.”