Secrets of Selecting Summer Melons (and Marketing Strategies…)
The past 5 weeks or so, I’ve been eating a lot of melons.
I love seasonal fruit.
It’s summer.
Melons are in season.
Therefore… its melon time round the clock!!!
Particularly cantaloupe (my favorite melon) and watermelon (my wife’s favorite melon).
But everytime I go to pick a melon, I enter a crisis that so many America’s face:
“How do I know if this is a ripe melon?!?”
Now for cantaloupe it is a pretty easy process, and I’ll share the secrets with you now:
You want a brown color (green is too fresh)
You want the “webbing” to be a bit raised (the smoother it is, the worse it is)
And most importantly, you smell the ends; if it smells sweet, then it is sweet
I don’t know if this is true or not, but I have also found that after you take it home, wait for small dents to form in the surface. When I cut those open they are soooooo gooooood.
But watermelons are a whole different ballgame.
There are a few tactics I know to use…
THUMP Method: hit the watermelon like a bongo. If it sounds “hollow”, then it is almost certainly ripe.
Thick Green Lines: There are dark and light green streaks on the outside of a watermelon. If the width of the green lines are about two adult finger lengths, then there is a good chance it is ripe.
Seeds: Seeded watermelons tend to be sweeter.
Brown/White Patches: If the bottom of the watermelong is brown and white, that indicates that it probably was allowed to ripen on the vine longer.
Brown Webbing: If there are streaks of brown lines across parts of the melon, almost like a spiderweb, then sugar was allowed to seep out of watermelon, and it will most likely be sweeter.
But even when I do ALL these things, sometimes I crack it open, and am not greeted by delicious, juicy, sweet, dark red melon…
But a pink, icy looking gross waste of time.
BLEH.
Picking watermelons is an educated guessing game.
Every climate, soil, water, farm, farmer… is a littler different.
There are no true watermelon universals.
And you might object: “But some people swear by the thump method!”
And I agree, there are some people so good at the thump method, that they can select a perfectly ripe melon every single time.
But the vast majority of people cannot, so they have to stick with those tactics.
But look at the list again… notice how I qualify everything?
“…almost certainly…”
“…there is a good chance…”
“…tend to be…”
“…probably…”
“…most likely…”
You are not a melon fanatic… you are marketing your tabletop game.
And for you, my point is this:
It’s the same way with marketing, including board game marketing:
THERE ARE NO GUARANTEES.
Every strategy, tactic, method, funnel, etc… is an educated guess.
We take whatever information we have about your customer base, the results of case studies, and studying industry/market trends.
Are we confident the board game marketing will work?
Absolutely!
Like picking a watermelon, it has worked before, and it will probably work again!
But unlike watermelons, there are way, WAY more factors that go into a successful marketing campaign.
There are more elements outside of our control and variables we don’t know anything about.
So if a marketer or copywriter tells you “Well I can’t make promises…” don’t fret!
Ask them what strategies and tactics they plan to use…
And why they think they will work for YOUR product, customer base, industry, business, etc.
If their answers check out, then just like picking watermelons, there is a good chance you’ll get some sweet results! .
