The Amish RV Company: The Best-Kept Secret

My company, LaBov & Beyond Marketing Communications, worked with an Amish recreational vehicle company for years. I love the response when I tell people that--they always smile. It sounds like the opening line to a joke. But it was no joke.

The president at the time, who was a fantastic gentleman, told me they were "the best-kept secret" in the RV business. They made the best product, but few people knew about them.

Think about it. When is it ever good to be a "best-kept secret"? Maybe if you were a secret agent or in the CIA. But if you sell a product and it's a secret, you're in trouble.

I told the president, after he hired us, that if one year from that day they were still a best-kept secret, we'd resign the account--too humiliating to be the marketing agency for a best-kept secret.

Turns out the Amish RV company made a great product, but other than putting out brochures, they never engaged their dealers to sell. They took care of customers' problems brilliantly, but never reached out to them otherwise.

All we did was help them balance their approach to marketing (less focus on brochures, more focus on generating action, improving the customer experience, and energizing the dealers).

And by the way, the Amish were fun to work with.

Barry LaBov
LaBov & Beyond Marketing Communications
www.labov.com