The Many P's of Marketing: Perfection

Marketing has gotten more and more nuanced, as new technologies and strategies have opened up many options for marketers.  It is my contention that today, the marketing mix contains much more than the traditional four or five P's that are taught in school.  In this series I am exploring the Many P's of Marketing.

Perfection:  There are few things I enjoy more than a perfectly ripened peach.  It is firm yet juicy, sweet and tangy, an adventure to eat and simply delicious.  It is fruit nirvana!  The problem with peaches is that they are perfectly ripe for such a short period of time that is almost impossible to experience this state of perfection very often.

Despite this, farmers still grow, harvest and ship peaches.  Grocery stores still stock them and sell them.  And I still buy them, hoping for that rare occurrence of a perfect peach.

The point is the great peach infrastructure isn't letting the difficulty of delivering their best, get in the way of delivering good.  They do not throw in the towel because they know only rarely will a piece of fruit hit the table at the perfect time.  Instead, they work to get the peaches they sell as good as they can.  And then they sell them.  Voltaire stated this more simply in his poem La Bégueule or The Prude Woman:  "The best is the enemy of the good."

In marketing terms, this means that there is an opportunity cost to waiting for perfection.  An imperfect ad that is placed in the media always generates more sales than the "great idea" that is still on the drawing table.  A product that is in the market, being purchased, used and tested by consumers will outsell the product that never gets released because the designers or the engineers or the factory "just can't get it right."  You can read more about this in a blog I wrote last summer, titled "Don't Wait For Perfection" here.

We have all read countless articles and blogs about the late Steve Jobs' obsession with perfection.  I would argue that even Mr. Jobs realized that perfection is the enemy of the good.  Eventually, Apple released the iPhone, the Macbook, the iPad.  They put each item out on the market and learned how they could make it better and did.  If the iPhone had been perfect when it was first released, Best Buy would not be selling iPhone 4, 4S and 5 right now (with another version right around the corner!)

I am not saying that you shouldn't strive for perfection.  Every marketer should.  But like growing peaches, if you wait until you have perfection before you go to market, you are probably going to be too late!