OVER USED AND ABUSED
YOUR INVOICE has been cleared for payment. Really? Of course I’ll still love you in the morning. On yer bike. Marketing consultants are here to help you. Pull the other one. Well, the third of these often incredulous statements has credibility if you have chosen the support well. Skilled marketing specialists can present compelling cases for their positive communications practicality.
Marketing is an over-used and much abused word, it has to be admitted. It is misinterpreted, hijacked as a populist metaphor for selling, or thought of as a devious means for portraying grey as white. Perhaps it is something to think about when the regular tissue of conjecture is being prepared for the bank manager?
Real marketing puts customers at the centre of all your business activities. It gives them what they want. It makes things better, or easier, or more cost-effective than the available alternatives.
Marketing equates to planning, product development, pricing, placement and then promotion. It is not a function, rather, it is a way of expanding business. It needs to be part of everyone’s job description, from the office junior to the chief executive.
It should be first in the timescale of events. Promotion comes much later. That’s the last step in the marketing process, not the first. Do not rush into advertising, emailers, social media content or any other promotional activity before the basics are in place.
Proficient marketing ensures that you can provide customers with what they want, in the way they want it, at a price they regard as affordable, always in the comfort that they can rely on your after-market support.
SPENDING TIME
It means spending time with customers, constantly monitoring competitors and developing feedback procedures to turn this information into marketplace intelligence. Not more marketing, but better marketing.
Smarter operators realise that exceeding customer expectations is guaranteed to enhance business performance and that the quickest way to lose out is to over-promise or fail to deliver.
When you have your customer-centred marketing plan in place, the next important step is to tell the world about what it offers – and a whole new array of skills are required. Much of marketing is sheer hard work and simple common sense.
The communications process, however, demands additional competence, just as you would expect to receive from a fee-earning accountant or lawyer. It is that specialist. It’s that important. Skilled, external communications help can open up entirely new vistas.
One simple, yet pivotal, example is the difference between features and benefits. Most companies are proud of their products or services and want to talk about the features in detail.
The trouble is that customers are not interested in features. They want to know about the benefits, about the advantages. Marketers will talk about the joys of it being easier, or more comfortable, or sexier. Effective promotion concentrates on those who buy, not those who make or sell.
REPUTATION INTACT
The ways in which content is developed for advertising, literature, the web and PR output are very different, but the underlying impression given must remain the same. In that way, your corporate reputation remains intact. The marketplace starts to trust in the continuity and integrity of your brand.
Leave the words to trained copywriters, the graphics to experienced artists, the pictures to real photographers, all working through a tight brief. At first sight, bringing in the specialists costs more, but nothing is inexpensive if it doesn’t work. In the long run, communications excellence could revolutionise your business.
The greater part of the value of most major companies is represented by intangible assets, not by buildings, nor plant and machinery, nor work in progress.
Your business worth relies more heavily than ever on two less tangible assets – brands and customer relations. The brand is not only an identity: it harnesses available skills to bring about competitive advantage. Moreover, customer relations are about making it easy to stay, difficult to go.
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