What You Should Expect From Your Marketing Program

 

Gerald Trump

Marketing Manager, HydraMaster Corporation

January 2005

   

Introduction

 

Truths, Lies, Perceptions, Realities and the “Word”

 

There are basically four human conditions or “truths” if you will that the function known as Marketing can NOT affect:

 

1) Perception is Reality. The first condition we must accept in Marketing is the fact that the human perception of a thing is reality. Perception is the process whereby sensory stimulation is translated into organized experience. That experience, or percept, is the joint product of the stimulation and of the process itself. But moreover, it is the projection of that experience or sequences of experiences that leads one to conclusions that their perception is indeed the truth.

The world is round (kind of). When people perceived it to be flat, they behaved as such. It may as well have been.

 

2) One can not change another’s fundamental BELIEFS by persuasion or the presentation of logic alone.

My God is better than your God.

 

3) One can change another’s OPINION and influence perceptions by persuasion using the repeated presentation of facts, features, benefits and frequent demonstrations or experiences.

 

4) People all act on an emotional level and justify their actions with facts. Bear in mind that the only difference between fact and fantasy is that a fact is a lie that is written down instead of being stated.

 

A man often uses the data he finds as drunkard uses a light post… for support rather than illumination. Hey… The light post serves both functions, does it not?

 

CHAPTER 1

 

Guess What? People don’t always tell the truth. Beware the data!

 

Products that nobody wanted.

 

 

Products that everybody wanted (well… They said they did).

 

 

Greatest branding companies in the world

 

 

What’s in a Strategy?

 

I prefer to see “Marketing Strategy” as a Marketing Action Plan or MAP. And do so for many reasons. First, one needs to know where they are. You can’t get to point “B” on a map if you don’t know where point “A” is.

 

This is where Situation Analysis becomes paramount in Marketing. Just as it is in every other department of a company. We must know where we are at all times along the journey. However, if we start from a point from other than where we really are at, then we end up far from our target or “destination.”

 

Second, once you have determined where you are, or analyzed your situation, you can then plot the right course to get to your destination. Many companies wander aimlessly until they fade away completely, because they lack the PROPER direction. Sooner or later you will end up going in circles and die.

 

Third, you need to find your destination on the map. Keep in mind that if you have once determined where you are going, that destination may change. Say a volcano erupts and wipes it off the map. You then will need to decide where to go from here. It is the exact same thing in Marketing. If we find that our destination changes, then we must re-plot out another course.

 

Fourth is the actual trip. You choose the best possible course and follow it. Just “going west” is costly. That’s why we have Advertising and Marketing Campaigns. You get there faster and more economically. Plan for the entire trip, not one advertisement at a time. If road construction occurs, you need to be flexible enough to get around it, but without the proper MAP, you again will get lost.

 

“SITUATION ANALYSIS Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats and defining our market.”

 

This includes our products, procedures, structure (organizational chart), financial, communication, Marketing, Sales, Engineering and Manufacturing. What are we saying to each other and to our customers? Research results from product testing, field testing and real world use.

 

 

CHAPTER 2

 

Communication Objective

What is the current, pertinent overall communication objective? What is the single point we want our target audience to remember about our products-organization?  This SINGLE point must be important to the target audience, set us apart from our competition, and be supported by the facts about our products and us.

 

Campaign Objective

What do we want the target audience to do after exposure to our message? 

Become newly aware of a product, service, or brand name where no awareness existed before? Change their perception of our company, product, or service? Write or call for information?

 

CHAPTER 3

 

How will success be measured?

 In twenty-five years of Marketing and Advertising I have been asked this question more than all other questions combined. “How does this equate to sales?” or “How many sales did this campaign generate?” Good question, right?

 

The correct answer is and always will be. “NONE.” And here’s why. The task of a company’s marketing program is NOT to increase sales. If this were even possible, we would not need Sales People.  And it does not matter what business or product one is marketing.

 

THE PRIMARY GOAL OF MARKETING

IS TO IDENTIFY, AND/OR CREATE

CUSTOMERS, COMPANIES OR

INDIVIDUALS WHO CONCLUDE THAT

IT MAY BE IN THEIR OWN BEST

INTEREST TO DO BUSINESS WITH US.

 

Our mission in the marketing department is to create an environment in which the customer appreciates the benefits of doing business with us, AND we discover how we can contribute to the customer’s success.

 

I’m not ignoring the importance of sales here. Sales is simply irrelevant at the marketing stage.

 

While Marketing has nothing to do with selling, it has everything to do with creating a proper environment to make sales.  There are many ways in which to accomplish this task, and THAT is what we must measure. The following seven items are tangible measurable ways to evaluate our Marketing. If we are doing these, then we have a successful Marketing Program.

 

1)   An effective Marketing program will clearly differentiate us from the competition. “This is how it’s done in this industry” are the 8 most detrimental words that can be said in any company.    By far the most critical criticism a business will ever have to face is that it looks just like every other outfit in the industry.  If you want to make price the determining factor in the customer making a decision on which product to purchase, simply make you equipment look like everyone else’s and charge significantly less money. It is way too common to see companies literally steel from each other when it comes to their marketing. The equipment looks alike, the brochures look alike, and the advertising looks alike. It may be comfortable, but it makes you just another brick in a wall and is a business stopper.

 

2)   An effective Marketing program will create a continuing flow of quality leads. This is an item we are presently working on. We are becoming educated on our Goldmine software and will be actively gathering and following leads from trade shows, advertising, and website requests for information much more actively than in the past. If a sales force is busy following up on qualified leads, sales will naturally increase. On the other hand, if the company’s salespeople must spend their time doing their own prospecting, they won’t be very efficient. A “lead” is nothing more than a semi-qualified customer. So it is not simplistic to suggest that the key to sales is leads.

 

3)   An effective Marketing program will give the company a stronghold in the Marketplace.  There are several ways to express this idea: being recognized as a serious player and the leader in our field are essential qualities for attracting customers in our environment. Accomplishing this requires a consistent image, message and approach. Simply doing a “better job” at what we do is not enough. This is where brand identity begins.

 

4)   An effective Marketing program will communicate a company’s expertise and knowledge. “Here’s what we can do for you!” We hear that everywhere! Feature - feature  - feature and then comes the price.  We must recognize, and then enunciate, dramatize and highlight our own unique characteristics. It is our differences, not our similarities that attract customers and prospects. We forget our capabilities… and focus on features and benefits of a particular piece of equipment. And we should know better. We are number one because the market sees HydraMaster as the most customer service oriented company in the industry. When was the last time we promoted that? Technical expertise? We don’t promote our expertise either.  These are the “features” that will set us apart from the competition.

 

5)   An effective Marketing program will give a company long-term orientation. American business seems to be suffering from “Instant Gratification Syndrome”. We want it now. Get it done now. Don’t worry about what happens two or three years down the road.  It is Marketing’s job to ask for the long-term plan. If we don’t have one, we can’t effectively market for tomorrow. And we can’t gain or keep momentum.

 

6)   An Effective program will be customer oriented.  There’s a big difference between jumping up and down yelling, “WE’RE NUMBER ONE” at a company pep rally versus doing it when it comes to the customer. It’s great if we want to get good employees. But using the fact that we are number one because of the great deal of customer satisfaction in our products and organization will give the new customer reason to consider purchasing our products. We must totally direct our message to the customer. OUR Company, OUR goals, OUR this and OUR that, sends the wrong message. All too often a new product goes out into the market, the marketing department is advertising it, the sales people are armed with brochures to go along with it, and we all spout the features and benefits of OUR product, when the focus should be on the customer and their needs.

 

7)   An effective Marketing program will be a vital force in customer retention. The eyes of a professional Marketer should never leave the current customers.  Fostering a relationship with our existing customers must be developed and maintained. Otherwise we will lose business simply because a customer begins to feel that they were abandoned the second the sale was made, and will eventually and quietly go spend their money elsewhere.

 

Measuring marketing with a sales yardstick is useless and inappropriate. Creating customers is the key to successful marketing.  Making the sale to those customers is a Sales function.

 

CHAPTER 4

 

Product and Service Highlights

What specific services do we offer besides the product, what issues do we need to face, what other contributions? (Leave room to type in answers)

 

How are Our Customers using the Products?

It’s not enough to ask our customer what they think the customer is doing. Often the best creative solutions come from direct observation of the products being used outside the production “loop.” In other words, we assume the information they want is the same as everybody else provides. And all customers use the equipment is the exact same way. It’s a mistake to make assumptions.

 

Describe the Target Audience for This Campaign

Because effective communication starts within the mind of the target audience, the more we know about what motivates these people, the more successful the campaign. Here we show the usual quantitative demographic information such as age, gender, income, etc., plus (and most importantly) qualitative information, such as attitudes towards our products and services, attitudes toward the products and services of our competition, attitudes about their own jobs, even their fears. What motivates these people? We must take care not to assume their motivations are necessarily the same as ours, or judge their motivations as good, bad, right or wrong. Who really IS the CUSTOMER?

 

CHAPTER 5

 

Benefits

What benefits does our target get from our products or services? Think this is obvious? Make sure these are NOT features. Security? Money? Savings? Reduced down time?

 

Supporting Facts

In order to be credible and EFFECTIVE we must support claims with facts. 

 

Comparison to Competitive Products

Products and services are not evaluated in a vacuum. They are evaluated in comparison with competitive products and services. What are our strengths and weaknesses in relation to the competition?

 

Mandatory Considerations

Are there any legal requirements, items that absolutely be included and “sacred cows?”

 

M.A.P. KEY QUESTIONS

 

Jerry Trump presented a complete M.A.P specific to HydraMaster (which is not reproduced here). From what he proposed these questions were culled.

 

 

THE FUTURE...

 

WHERE IS POINT “B”?

 

WELL?