4 Promotion. There’s not much point in creating a product if nobody has heard about it. There are two vital questions. How will customers find out about our prod ucts? And will they have enough information to make a decision?
Fifty years ago, a company made a product and people bought it. Thirty years ago, companies had to sell their products. Today, companies must market their brand successfully, so that people trust them before they buy their products.
You must continuously evolve your products and services to match the changing needs of your customers.
1.2 Marketing is definitely not selling
Many people are confused by the difference between sales and marketing. Just remember that marketing people deal with markets that contain many potential customers, and they talk to them as a group. Whereas salespeople deal with a few customers and talk to them one at a time.
There is a lot of overlap between the two roles and this can sometimes cause conflict and misunderstanding. But it is essential that marketing and sales people work together and support each other to achieve the organization’s business objectives.
one minute wonder Make sure that you involve sales and customer service people as early as possible in all promotional campaigns. This eliminates hostility, misunderstanding and any feelings of things not being invented here.
Marketing looks at what’s happening in the market. It’s important to assess market trends and the competition. These days, most forward-thinking marketing people also involve salespeople to help their understanding. This is because salespeople have an intimate knowledge of individual customers and competitors.
Marketing creates promotional campaigns. This is to increase awareness of the business and its brand. Salespeople must be told what the promotions are doing and when they’re going to happen. Then sales can ride on the back of the campaign and generate additional business.
Marketing prepares promotional material. This is to help potential customers understand what your business does. It includes brochures, presentations and your website. Salespeople should use these to describe the business and explain the benefits of your products to individual customers.
Marketing works with sales. Together they create campaigns to generate enquiries from customers. It is essential that these campaigns support sales activities and objectives.
Sales weeds out the time-wasters. Sales must identify those potential customers who are seriously interested in buying your products. It’s also their job to convince individual customers to make a purchase. Then salespeople will either take an order or the money.
Sales and marketing work together on catalogues. Whether it’s with mail order, over the Internet or through third parties such as distributors and agents, marketing and sales must work together. In this situation marketing must support sales.
To learn more about selling, you should read the Selling Secrets book in this series.
Marketing approaches broad groups of potential customers; salespeople talk to them individually.
1.3 Adapt and adopt, learn and evolve
Marketing people love change because it means opportunity. Markets, the competition and technology never stand still, and you must embrace this culture of constant change. Those businesses that didn’t have been forgotten.
Can you name any company that used to make slide rules or steam cars? The crossbow was destroyed by the musket, the musket by the rifle, and the rifle by who knows what.
The best marketing people understand that they can’t stand still because the world does not stand still. Their philosophy is one that embraces change with open arms. If you want to be successful in marketing, you’ll need to do the same. That means never being satisfied with the way things are, but instead constantly looking at how things could be improved, particularly in relation to the competition.
one minute wonder See what happens when you buy your main competitor’s product. Was it easy? How was their service compared to yours? If you’re not ahead, you need to change.
“Marketing takes a day to learn. Unfortunately it takes a lifetime to master” Philip Kotler, marketing guru
Always keep an eye on your competition. Regularly look at what your competitors are up to. Analyse what they’re good at and what they’re not. Adjust your own approach and play to their weak spots.
Buy your competitors’ products. You must buy their products and give them to your design people. Ask them what’s good and what’s bad about them. Try to understand what they’re doing now and predict what they’re going to do next year and the year after.
See what’s happening in your industry in other countries. Some countries are way ahead of others. See what they’re up to because it’s where your market might be in two, three or five years’ time.
Look at other industries and see how they do things. Adapt their successful ways to your business. Most companies in the same industry do things in a similar way. So a different approach may give you a unique advantage over your competitors.
Attend seminars and workshops. Go to at least two workshops a year on sales and marketing. Network with the audience and find out what works well for them. Even if you don’t learn anything, you’ll remember something good that you’d forgotten.
Regularly review your own performance. Don’t be afraid to admit that something didn’t work as well as you’d hoped. Remember, it’s always better to do something, than regret doing nothing.
The secret of success in marketing is to keep learning and evolving the way that you do things.
Change means opportunity. Embrace it and try new things.
1.4 Customers need to be seduced
Fifty years ago people went to the local shops for most of what they needed. The shopkeeper knew them and took time to talk and ask about their family. In those days, shopping was relaxed and shopkeepers were usually friendly.
Gradually, though, the small local shops disappeared as the large chains and supermarkets took over. Shopping then became impersonal. It became transaction-based: you went to a shop, bought what you needed and left. As it didn’t really matter where you shopped, you weren’t loyal to any particular retail outlet. After all, you could get your favourite brands anywhere. But, at the start of this century, companies realized that they needed to engage with their customers to keep them coming back. Loyalty, lifestyles and aspirations became the buzzwords of the day in marketing.
The Apple example. In the early 1990s, Apple was a small, specialist computer company. Its customers were loyal and most of
