Get serious about making marketing work

PBN Staff

06/21/2009

Successful marketing depends on one basic concept. To find it, start by peeling away the corporate jargon and the pompous pronouncements of the would-be gurus, and if you are lucky, you may find the key is total focus on the customer, not the product or the company.
“We have a program that’s a perfect fit for your client,” the radio sales rep announces. This is a person who doesn’t know anything about the client except that it has nearly 50 locations throughout the region. Without the foggiest notion of the client’s marketing objectives, he announces boldly that his media outlets are “a perfect fit.”
It doesn’t need to be this way. Here are seven guidelines for making marketing work.
&#8226 Don’t think about anything other than the customer. Most companies get in the way of good marketing. No matter what they say, they act as if their marketing should be about them and what they sell or what they do. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
For example, a company serving high-end consumers developed a new Web site. While it looked good, the company failed to take the consumer into consideration. The Web site is all about the company. There is no effort to engage the customer, other than to sign up for a service, and even then there is no provision for using a credit card, let alone get more information or express an opinion.
Chances are the site is the way it is because the Web designers spent their time meeting with company management. No one thought about who would be using the Web site. If someone had, the result could have been quite different.
&#8226 Stop trying to manipulate customers. Attempts to get recipients to open e-mail messages with the lure of receiving “helpful information” often turn out to be nothing more than thinly veiled attempts to sell something. As soon as the customer is faced with a form with 15 spaces of “required” information, the veil is lifted and the brand is damaged. Instead of taking this approach, the objective should be to find ways to connect with the customer by mutual alignment of values. It’s out of this experience that sales are made. &#8226 Demonstrate your company’s values. Avon, which describes itself as “a company for women,” does an effective job of aligning itself with the values of its constituency. Its mission is “improving the lives of women” in economic empowerment, the environment, governance, people and diversity, philanthropy, product responsibility, stakeholder engagement, supply chain and work place safety and health.
John King, a talented young branding mind at Minneapolis-based Fallon Advertising, said recently in AdvertisingAge, “We believe that the future belongs to generous brands. … They help build ideas in the world; they leave something behind.” This is what Avon’s marketing is all about.
&#8226 Just getting people through the door doesn’t make them customers. Macy’s is known for its “Star Rewards,” credit card-size coupons touting “Extra 20 percent off” or “Take $25 off.” It sounds very rewarding until you discover that the back of each card is filled with a listing of everything you want to buy – as exclusions. Why would anyone want to be known as a Macy’s customer? Unless there is a value proposition that connects with the recipient, there is no customer.
&#8226 Don’t fall for every gimmick that comes along. It’s easy to become excited about Twitter. But ask yourself, “Whatever happened to MySpace?” It fell flat on its face in less than a year. There is another reason to be cautious about what you’re doing. You may be linked in more than you expected or wanted.
If you want to explore the possibility of social networking, start by blogging, building a reputation for your ideas and using Twitter and other social media to drive traffic to your blog. That may be an effective way for your company to share its thoughts and ideas. &#8226 Whatever else you do, be consistent. Even the best marketing can go bad by a lack of consistency. In 2008, Kia, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen all increased their advertising an average of 42.8 percent over their 2007 expenditures, according to USA Today. This occurred when overall auto sales had plummeted and other brands were slashing their marketing budgets.
While others lost market share, Kia’s rose to 3.1 percent from 1.9 percent. Mercedes went to 1.8 percent from 1.6 percent. And VW’s share rose to 1.9 percent from 1.4 percent. Modest gains? Not to these car companies. Consistency wins customers.
&#8226 Focus on pleasing the customer. Even the most compelling marketing messages are worthless if the customer isn’t satisfied. Several people had been patiently standing in line waiting to make a purchase at a well-known auto parts store. After waiting for about 10 minutes, no one was available to help them. Finally, a worker came by with a Coke in his hand and a fellow employee asked him if he would like to take care of the customers. His reply left everyone aghast. “I’m on my break,” he said, and disappeared around the corner, leaving the customers waiting for someone to help them.
Contrast that with a visit to an Apple store where you are greeted, assigned a knowledgeable personal shopper who is charged with the task of taking care of you for however long you are there.
When the focus is on the customer rather than on making the sale, the difference is transforming. &#8226

John R. Graham is president of Graham Communications, a marketing services and sales consulting firm in Quincy, Mass. He can be reached at jgraham@grahamcomm.com.

PBN Branded Content