Marketing, Schmarketing!
Marketers can get so convoluted in our embrace of techniques and technology that we, and our businesses, often forget about the basics.
Sometimes I think as an industry we try and theorise things way too much in the search for the marketing panacea and the almost panicky desire to 'prove' absolutely everything down to the last cent.
And as a result we spend way too much time over-analysing, over-intellectualising and as a result over-complicating what is primarily a pretty straight forward process.
Sure, the playing field is getting more crowded and sure people are getting even more tired of being 'marketed' to - but that's exactly the point. It's not about marketing TO people, it's about setting up your business in a way that attracts the right type of customers, wanting to buy your stuff.
So here's something radical - Don't get sucked in to all the hyperbole in the industry by us marketers. Take a step back, refresh, recharge and focus on the basics of good marketing and the basics of good business to get the results you need, without over complicating it.
You have a choice - spend those hours, even days or months, searching for and going through all of the techniques, strategic offerings, big ideas, case studies and Nirvana-reaching processes that are available out there. Or you can short-circuit all of that and find out in real simple terms, what can be done to take your business to a different level.
hopefully in this Blog you're going to be shown Common Sense Marketing in every sense of the phrase. But by 'marketing' I don't mean hyping something up and selling someone something they never knew they needed.
Marketing doesn't make customers happy.
Having a good experience does.
Marketing should not just be about brand-buidling, positioning, cost per acquisition, lifetime value, profit per customer and many other metrics that budget allocation is so often geared by.
It should purely and simply be about giving your customers the best possible experience when they are either researching products and services like yours or actually intending to buy them.
In simple terms - you have a product or service you would like people to buy.
Make that the best possible product, with the best possible service and the best possible support from the best and nicest possible people will almost definately override anything else and people will always be prepared to pay whatever they think that is worth - if it does the job.
It's the basics of any business since time began.
You can't attract people to buy your stuff - if you make it difficult for them - in whatever way. And if you make out like you don't care, you just want their money, guess what's going to happen?
You must focus on making customers happy by shifting away from the 'marketing' paradigm to 'customer satisfaction' as a priority because only then will you truly see a difference.
Why do companies spend so much time - and money - on creating complicated layers of supposed 'marketing' plans, tactics and strategies borne from acres and acres of theoretical and scientific analysis, profiling, data, usage etc etc which just tries to make marketing more complicated than it actually is when all in fact you need to do is provide a good product or service, that people actually want/need, let them know you are there and then make it damn easy for them to find out more info, purchase that product and talk to you if they want to.
It seems that all todays marketing efforts are about driving people to products with advertising and promotions and then working to keep their business by trying to pursuade them to buy more stuff through constant barrage of marketing communications, incentive programs, loyalty schemes etc.
It's this obvious - users/customers/prospects - no, PEOPLE - are turned off by marketing efforts that are designed to benefit the company and not the customer!
At best they are nuisances. At worst they totally damage any brand value that may have been built up through just having a good product available at a price that people are willing to pay for and that satisfies a particular need.
The people you want to buy your products/services should absolutley be at the CENTRE of all your decisions regarding marketing, sales, communications, support, websites , emails anything or anyone that is likely to have contact with or who could influence a users decision to purchase (or purchase again)
And if you don't know what they want or what pisses them off - ask them!
Sometimes I think as an industry we try and theorise things way too much in the search for the marketing panacea and the almost panicky desire to 'prove' absolutely everything down to the last cent.
And as a result we spend way too much time over-analysing, over-intellectualising and as a result over-complicating what is primarily a pretty straight forward process.
Sure, the playing field is getting more crowded and sure people are getting even more tired of being 'marketed' to - but that's exactly the point. It's not about marketing TO people, it's about setting up your business in a way that attracts the right type of customers, wanting to buy your stuff.
So here's something radical - Don't get sucked in to all the hyperbole in the industry by us marketers. Take a step back, refresh, recharge and focus on the basics of good marketing and the basics of good business to get the results you need, without over complicating it.
You have a choice - spend those hours, even days or months, searching for and going through all of the techniques, strategic offerings, big ideas, case studies and Nirvana-reaching processes that are available out there. Or you can short-circuit all of that and find out in real simple terms, what can be done to take your business to a different level.
hopefully in this Blog you're going to be shown Common Sense Marketing in every sense of the phrase. But by 'marketing' I don't mean hyping something up and selling someone something they never knew they needed.
Marketing doesn't make customers happy.
Having a good experience does.
Marketing should not just be about brand-buidling, positioning, cost per acquisition, lifetime value, profit per customer and many other metrics that budget allocation is so often geared by.
It should purely and simply be about giving your customers the best possible experience when they are either researching products and services like yours or actually intending to buy them.
In simple terms - you have a product or service you would like people to buy.
Make that the best possible product, with the best possible service and the best possible support from the best and nicest possible people will almost definately override anything else and people will always be prepared to pay whatever they think that is worth - if it does the job.
It's the basics of any business since time began.
You can't attract people to buy your stuff - if you make it difficult for them - in whatever way. And if you make out like you don't care, you just want their money, guess what's going to happen?
You must focus on making customers happy by shifting away from the 'marketing' paradigm to 'customer satisfaction' as a priority because only then will you truly see a difference.
Why do companies spend so much time - and money - on creating complicated layers of supposed 'marketing' plans, tactics and strategies borne from acres and acres of theoretical and scientific analysis, profiling, data, usage etc etc which just tries to make marketing more complicated than it actually is when all in fact you need to do is provide a good product or service, that people actually want/need, let them know you are there and then make it damn easy for them to find out more info, purchase that product and talk to you if they want to.
It seems that all todays marketing efforts are about driving people to products with advertising and promotions and then working to keep their business by trying to pursuade them to buy more stuff through constant barrage of marketing communications, incentive programs, loyalty schemes etc.
It's this obvious - users/customers/prospects - no, PEOPLE - are turned off by marketing efforts that are designed to benefit the company and not the customer!
At best they are nuisances. At worst they totally damage any brand value that may have been built up through just having a good product available at a price that people are willing to pay for and that satisfies a particular need.
The people you want to buy your products/services should absolutley be at the CENTRE of all your decisions regarding marketing, sales, communications, support, websites , emails anything or anyone that is likely to have contact with or who could influence a users decision to purchase (or purchase again)
And if you don't know what they want or what pisses them off - ask them!
posted by Nick Field at 2/03/2005 11:20:00 AM
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