Marketing Marketing - Pink Fluffy Dice Anyone?
Having just had the pleasure of attending a seminar run by Professor Philip Kotler, who has to be the most renowned marketing guru in the world, it made me think of the paradox of why marketers are not great at marketing themselves.
Kotler argues that “marketing drives up demand to create supply”. Marketing shapes motivations, the “wants” and gets people excited! The demand is in convincing people that they can manage to purchase X and not default.
Exploding the 3 myths of marketing:
It’s all about sales ....
.... well no, it’s not! Windows 8 is a great example of something that did not add value to customer experiences, at whatever price or indeed even if free. Get the product available at the right price to someone who has a need it will fulfil – and that will lead to a sale.
Taking the example above compare Windows 8 or the Sinclair C5 to an iPhone 6S and more recently, a VW Diesel. The product has to be good quality and serve to help the target audience i.e. those who it is meant for. What problem does it overcome? What price is acceptable – which comes down to perceived value.
Meeting these conditions means income generation leading to profitability for many businesses but can mean increased brand awareness, raised membership, stronger advocacy for charities, and streamlined more effective costs not-for-profit and public sectors. Ultimately marketing adds value to the bottom-line.
A posh word for communications .....
..... add into this mix, junk mail, spam emails, property timeshares being “sold to you” … in fact mostly negative things!
Effective marketing communications are targeted, segmented and honest; today’s view is far more about pull than push for instance opting-in to receive newsletters, following on Twitter- it is customer driven which is exactly as it should be.
Communications have to be properly targeted – how do any of us feel when we get an offer that is nothing we have ever wanted/needed/desired?? i.e. nappies on special offer to a young, single, childless student, free dog biscuits to a cat owner, or double glazing salesmen when renting (and yes I confess I may still make out I’m renting even though I own my house now if one turns up on the doorstep!). This is miles away from receiving your a strongly branded, well marketed regular newsletter from a favourite retailer, offering you bespoke information and offers you are interested in.
Pink fluffy dice ......
..... those nice little bits but that add no value, just cost you money having someone dreaming up things to try to justify their existence ...... and pay!
Fluffy dice equivalents may work sometimes, but they have to be relevant to your brand and what product or service you are selling. If you are aiming for AB1s, then match any merchandising with this group or you will fail to impress and indeed may weaken your brand.
Well as a Chartered Marketer of over 15 years, it’s time to market what it is, I and my thousands of professional peers actually do, which is to add value to the bottom line of any business or organisation. This isn’t achieved by luck either, there is a systematic, structured process to follow to maintain focus and target appropriately. It is about working closely with all the people in an organisation from the business owners to the cleaners to understand the true DNA.
Structured, focused, targeted.
Marketing needs to feed in to everything to do with the product – it is integral at every stage, from development to operational processes, staff metrics and incentives and the overall culture.
So yes to marketing marketing! It is about business development, it is about adding value to the bottom line of an organisation. Yes it’s about looking for new opportunities yet being aware of threats, analysing objectively what the strengths and weaknesses are. With this focus and a structured process, marketing delivers quantifiable ROI every time.
