An utterly priceless baseball quote is “…hit ‘em where they ain’t,” which is attributed to baseball immortal Wee Willie Keeler. At roughly 5’4” and 140 pounds (small even by 19th century ballplayer standards), Keeler was one of the smallest men ever to play the game; despite his stature, he was an incredibly resourceful hitter. Keeler’s advice to younger hitters was, “Keep your eye clear, and hit ’em where they ain’t” – “they” meaning the opposing fielders. He had an incredible knack for being able to hit the ball between fielders, pull to opposite fields, and bunt practically any pitch.
His hitting philosophy is also a marketing strategy that I have used to great success.
At my last employer, I constantly strove to stretch our meager advertising dollars. The print (and some online) publications were where the industry giants played, thus putting up high barriers to entry. So I remembered the quote from Keeler and pursued where the giants were not playing. The answer came in a relatively new online advertising player that was eager to get into our industry. They developed online portals specifically for our target audiences. Better yet, our competitors had no presence on these portals. We had the opportunity to beat them to the punch! The portals cost a fraction of the other media while providing us incredible visibility. They blasted all of our press releases to their subscribers, published our articles, and even helped us facilitate partnerships.
We enjoyed more than a full baseball season’s success in hitting them where they ain’t.