Test marketing’

Ok once again I’m here to chew gum and kick arse… And I’m all out of arse.

Wait…

Never mind, on with the post

Lately the internet can only seem to talk about one thing, TNA and hulk Hogan. Or is that two things? Look the point is that the vibe going around is that Hogan sucks blah blah blah, going to ruin TNA etc.

But that’s just the view from people that follow wrestling.

What I did to get a perspective on the matter, was to ask someone who was in marketing and sales, about this situation and if what Hogan is doing (which is having only two PPVs away from the impact zone and reducing the total number of house shows) is the right thing to do.

And the answer shockingly was yes

That’s right, Hogan and Eric are doing the right thing. Wanna know why?

Smark- “No! I’m right because I’ve been watching wrestling all my life and can do a better job than Vince can cause he knows nothing about wrestling Cena sucks screw all you noobs we want attitude era back!!!!!!”

Shut up Smark

Anyway the reason is ….. Test marking

That’s right, it’s what successful business’s use when they want to test a new product or expand into a new market. Key word here is expand.

What people forget is that for a major wrestling company, the majority of their income would come from PPV and TV. And not from house shows as a lot of these arm chair critics like to think (want an example? Go to rajah.com and look up john report). So Hogan goes and looks at TNA’s record of house shows, how the bleed money because they can never fill up an area, demoraliser’s their roster because they didn’t even draw enough fans to fill half the arena, and most of all, just adding fatigue onto their wrestler’s.

Sure TNA have a light schedule compared to the WWE, but every match is a risk or getting injured, and if you’re not selling out a show, why bother risking your talent.

So instead Hogan looks at it this way, reduce the amount of shows and PPV outside the Impact zone, and focus on making the product better. Take all their energy away from these shows and put it into making a better show for the audience. As I said, their money is made from PPV and TV.

So let me bring you back into this idea of test marketing, TNA will most likely only do two shows outside the impact zone in America this year. So as a business man, what would you think if your two biggest shows of the year did not sell out the arena? Simply you wouldn’t waste your time putting on these lesser shows in the same area. Instead you would wait until your product is better, and more recognised around the country before you take that risk.

And that is what Hogan is doing, he is putting most of TNA show’s on in a studio where it is free to film, is guaranteed an audience every night, and is regardless of what people think, different from their competitor’s look and feel.

The main argument against what Hogan is doing is that TNA will continue to look like the minor leagues by staying in the Impact zone, but contrary to that statement, I’d rather a full arena of 500 people than an half empty one with 2000. The impact zone is one of the things that make’s TNA unique, people should be wary of that, furthermore they should be weary of the fact that if TNA were to film outside of the impact zone, they would look worse than before.

So from this moment now, TNA are taking educated risks, instead of blind ones like before

And that is why Hogan is right.

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