I remember back in the 80s and 90s when WalMart was taking over the retail universe in the U.S., there were so called “mom and pop” retail stores in many towns that were praying that WalMart would not set up shop in their communities.
A new WalMart in town was the death knell for small retail stores.
I remember one mom and pop store proprietor saying that the items he offered customers were cheaper to buy at retail price at WalMart than from the wholesale distributor from whom he usually bought his inventory.
Needless to say, his store didn’t make it. His customers all migrated to WalMart,
WalMart’s brand promise for decades was “guaranteed low prices.” I believe it has now morphed into something like “always low prices.”
Not only was WalMart’s brand promise a very powerful motivator for consumers, WalMart also had the financial resources to spread the message far and wide.
And they still do.
Who among us doesn’t know that they can get things really cheap at WalMart?
I bring up the example of WalMart because it is relevant to the Pregnancy Help Center (PHCs) industry.
You will often hear from pro-lifers something like this: “There are over 3,000 PHCs in our country, and only 700 Planned Parenthood abortion facilities!”
What most pro-life people don’t know is that the vast majority of the 3,000 PHCs are “mom and pop” organizations that have a single location, sometimes two locations.
In addition, most PHCs are so budget constrained that they do very little marketing to let young women in the community know that they are there to help them if needed.
On the other hand, Planned Parenthood is more like WalMart.
Planned Parenthood has a single, coherent marketing and operating strategy (a playbook!) that is implemented by all of its facilities.
In addition, it puts significant resources into multi-dimensional marketing programs in order to ensure that all young women in the local community know that they can get an abortion there.
In the same way that WalMart crushes its mom and pop competitors, Planned Parenthood does the same to PHCs in most cities.
But I can hear you now saying, “Wait a minute, Brett. The local PHC I support saved 100 lives from abortion last year. How can you say that’s not a success?”
More on that tomorrow….
Regards,
Brett