Page 84 - 100 Great Marketing Ideas (100 Great Ideas)

38 CREDIT WHERE
CREDIT’S DUE

Nowadays, we all buy things on credit. Even people who claim
that they never borrow money for anything will borrow to buy a
house—life in the twenty-first century is all but impossible without
occasionally borrowing money.

But what about people who have poor or nonexistent credit ratings?
How are they supposed to manage? Obviously most of them don’t
do too well, but they still need to buy things, and we still have
things to sell them: too many companies dismiss the poorer end of
the community, but it’s worth remembering that there is a lot less
competition and a lot more to be gained in the market as a whole.
After all, there are more poor people than rich ones!

The idea

When Littlewoods’ catalog started in the 1930s, John Moores (its
founder) recruited his first agents by sending a mailing to his
existing football pools gamblers. At first, credit was limited, but
Moores quickly saw the potential for giving credit to the agents (who
were themselves creditworthy) on behalf of the end customers (who
were not). The agents had a social bond with the end customers,
since they were mainly friends, family, and neighbors: although they
might be prepared to back out of paying a large, faceless company,
they would be unlikely to cheat their friends or family.

Incidentally, Moores was already a millionaire in 1932: he set himself
the challenge of making another million from the catalog business,
starting with only one office and four staff. He did it by 1936.

100 GREAT MARKETING IDEAS • 75