The Big Marketing Mistake
And how you can avoid making it
By
Kathy Martin

Marketing has an image problem.  Everybody knows that marketing’s job is to bring in enough buyers so a business can grow profitably but marketing doesn’t seem to work a lot of the time:

• Revenues fall
• Advertising doesn’t work
• Customers leave or aren’t profitable
• Competitors win on price
• Sales don’t close
• New products or services fail.

Disappointing marketing results don’t stem from lack of effort. Most businesses work really hard at marketing and spend some serious time and money on it. No one tries to run a business without at least some marketing activity.

Everyone Has a “Marketing Program”

If you ask top management in any kind of business, almost 100% will report they have a “marketing program.”

Marketing programs come in all shapes and sizes:

Some companies focus on their ability to produce very high quality products or deliver high quality service. They believe that if an offering is of the highest quality, people will buy it.

Other firms rely on aggressive sales and advertising efforts to sell the products and services they offer. They hold the “grab ‘em by the tie and choke ‘em till they buy,” philosophy – if you get in front of enough hot prospects or advertise in enough places, the customers and the money will follow.

Some businesses activate their marketing program when revenues take a dive. They network all over the place, advertise, call old customers and generally market like crazy until the situation changes. Then they stop and wait until the next sales slump and do it again.

Still others believe that anyone who can fog a mirror and write a check is a potential buyer. Their marketing program is often designed for them by an advertising sales rep, a Web site designer, a sign company, or some other vendor who convinces them that their solution - ad/Web site/advertising specialty etc. - will bring in all the business the firm will ever need.

Yet it’s rare to find a business that has more profitable customers than it can handle.

Most Marketing Gets Mediocre Results

Most “marketing programs” don’t work real well. They cost money, take up lots of precious time, and businesses still get mediocre marketing results.

The Big Marketing Mistake

Even though people who run businesses are really good at what they do, they often make a common but dangerous marketing mistake.

They believe and act on the two myths about marketing:

• Marketing is the same thing as promotion (selling, advertising, networking, word of mouth and so on)
• Marketing is an event instead of a process

How Are Successful Marketers Different?

Successful marketers know the two things that help them attract and keep more desirable customers/clients.

• They know what marketing really is.

One of the best definitions of marketing comes from Philip Kotler, a highly respected marketing educator and consultant. He says:

“Marketing is the art of creating genuine customer value, not the art of finding clever ways to dispose of what you make.”

• They understand the entire marketing process.

Successful marketers learn and use proven marketing principles and then apply them consistently to their business. They are very clear that marketing is a process, not an event.

How Do Successful Marketers Become Successful Marketers?

Successful marketers think and act differently because they consistently perform eight key marketing tasks.

Task # 1 - See

Great marketers see every business activity or decision from their customers’ point of view. They don’t make a move without understanding how the customer will see it.

Successful marketers organize their business around their customers. They think of marketing as a way of looking at their entire business from their customer’s point of view instead of their own.

Task # 2 - Learn

Great marketers constantly learn.

They make a point of learning how changes in their marketing environment can affect sales, costs, and profit – things like:

• Changes in technology
• What’s happening with the economy
• New laws and regulations
• Population trends
• Shifts in cultural values and beliefs

Great marketers learn how to build systems that provide useful internal information. They know which products/services are their best sellers and they know which customers are most profitable. They’ve got a good handle on what it costs to deliver their products and services. They build and maintain powerful customer databases.

Successful marketers learn a lot about their collaborators.  Collaborators are those folks who don’t work for the company but can make or break the business. They might be inventory suppliers, a government agency, a printer, or a shipping company. The better they do their jobs, the better the company looks to its customers.

Savvy marketers spend time learning about the competition. They develop a clear picture of competitor strengths and weaknesses and know how they stack up.

Most important of all, successful companies learn more about their customers wants, needs, beliefs, attitudes, and buying processes than the competition does. A business can never know too much about customers.

Bottom line, the company who has the best information and knows how to use it, wins.

Task # 3 - Think

Companies with great information see a broader set of customer groups to choose from and think carefully about which groups they believe they can serve better than the competition can. They systematically analyze all their opportunities and select the ones that offer their best shot at success. They can paint a complete detailed picture of their target market.

Task # 4 - Decide

Successful marketers make the following four key marketing decisions intelligently because they have a customer focus, good information and a clear picture of who their customer is:

• What target customers want and need our products and/or services to look like
• How to price offerings so the target customers will buy and so the firm can make a profit
• How to make it easier for customers to buy from the company instead of the competition
• Where and how to effectively communicate with current and potential customers

Task # 5 – Organize

Great marketers organize their business in such a way that they can implement marketing decisions systematically and consistently.

They put systems and processes in place to:

• Monitor the competition
• Follow their industry
• Improve old products and services or add new offerings
• Develop leads
• Close sales
• Communicate with customers and potential customers

They develop, write and regularly update a marketing plan. It takes a lot of time, but the efforts pay off in a big way.

Task # 6 - Do

Marketing visionaries “just do it” – they take action.

They develop and use action plans that:

• States the specific results desired, sets time limit for getting the results, and assigns responsibility for getting the job done.
• Are very clear about how they want target customers to behave in response to their marketing – both long and short-term.
• Are used and revised on a regular basis.

Task # 7 – Check

Great marketers check marketing results. They track and analyze what happens. They analyze what worked, what didn’t, and why. They correct it or improve it.

Task # 8 - Do It Again

Great marketers do it again and again and again.

10 Things Every Successful Marketer Knows

To sum it up, there are ten things every successful marketer knows:

• Marketing isn’t selling and it isn’t advertising and it isn’t networking and it isn’t word of mouth.
• The marketing process is a mandatory business management skill that can and should be learned.
• Marketing isn’t about you – it’s about the customer.
• Great marketing always starts with great information.
• You can’t market to “everyone” – you‘ve got to choose your best opportunities & let the others go.
• Businesses should be organized around marketing activities and not the other way around.
• Writing, using and revising written marketing plans is a necessary habit.
• Good marketing decisions are based on what the customer wants to buy, not what the business wants to sell.
• You can’t avoid any tasks in marketing and still expect it to work.
• Marketing is gardening, not hunting. It takes time, money, patience, and repetition.

©  2002 All Rights Reserved
By Kathy Sanders Martin and Sanders Martin Consulting, LLC