10 marketing questions
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The document provides advice for building a marketing plan and discusses key considerations such as understanding the difference between sales and marketing, knowing what you are really selling, understanding your brand, having a clear story, focusing on customers, determining if social media is appropriate, maintaining consistency, being ready to evolve strategies, spreading your own message through community involvement, and how to hire an agency. The overall message is the importance of thorough discovery and understanding your business, customers, and brand before developing a marketing plan and strategy.
10 marketing questions
- 1. 10? ASK YOURSELF WHEN BUILDING YOUR MARKETING PLAN
- 2. 1 What is the difference between Sales & Marketing? Sales is not marketing. Marketing is not sales. But when you're hustling through the start-up phase, it can all get lumped together as you struggle to find enough customers to keep the lights on.That's the business-stage equivalent of eating ramen noodles in college: Required at the time but not how you want to live your life forever. As your business evolves, it needs to separate the sales & marketing functions.That doesn't necessarily mean hiring two new executives, but you should at least be thinking about the two areas independently. "So many companies confuse the two", "That if they do a newspaper ad & have a loss leader that is going to generate sales that it's marketing. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. But it's not marketing. Marketing shapes bring, positioning, pricing. Sales build the relationships, translate the needs & close the sale. Understanding the difference is critical."
- 3. 2 What are you really selling? As you separate the sales & marketing aspects of your business, you may discover a big dif- ference between what you sell & what you market.What you sell is all about you; what you market is all about your customers. they are not in the business of selling.That's what they do from a transaction & point, but they are really in the business of celebrating special mo- ments. So we built a marketing plan around that. "Don’t end up spending a lot more money, just throwing money at the problem doesn't pay off. First you have to do the hard work of understanding who you are & what you really sell.
- 4. 3 Do you Understand your Brand? When people say 'bring,' people get scared & think big advertising budgets. But at this stage it's more about creating the experience for the customer. I think about marketing as finding the end consumer without doing it face to face because your company has grown to a size where you need to reach larger groups than the CEO can do in person. But bring is who you are "Marketers always want to talk about the tangible thing "People don't care about that until they are actually ready to make a buy.You have to get customers to under- stand how you fit their lives. Quicken Loans thinks about mortgages as more than just a transaction; they think they are helping people achieve something in life." The goal was to understand how potential customers felt about the facility & what was keeping them from booking conventions. "But if anything, we found this unmet need of people wanting to help Detroit.You realize you are leaving things out of the offering that you didn't realize were im- portant to folks. & that's the key to brand &:Once you understand& who you are & how you fit in, you can then market what makes you special & close sales. "Understanding who you are & who you are trying to be is job No. 1.
- 5. 4 What is your story? Consumers like stories.You have to know what yours is — & who you are targeting.Your sto- ry might be terribly boring to a general consumer audience, but fascinating to the supply chain manager at the company you are trying to do business with. "Your message needs to have that wonderful chemistry of the rational & the emotional," . "Look at what you've done to create jobs in the area, what you've done to invest in the market area.Those local relation- ships are playing bigger with consumers.That's something important to examine in your messaging.", for example, gets a lot of attention in the national press despite being a new- comer. But that's because it has mastered its story. It's not just a bike builder or a watchmak- er. It's a company that creates jobs in a city with high unemployment &, yes, makes luxury products.
- 6. 5 Are you focused on your Customer? It's always about the customer.You sell rings; they buy memories.You sell engine parts; the automakers buy guaranteed on-time delivery of a critical component. But to focus on the customer, you have to know what the customer is thinking. "A customer satisfaction metric, it's very hard to get your arms around," Tompkins said. "But as the owner/operator/CEO, it's really important that you get out there on a regular basis, whether in a retail store or calling in & testing your call center." Another option is to hire a marketing firm to do your sleuth- ing. If you do nothing else, hire a firm to do discovery," . "A lot of your growth will come from your current customer base.They are interested in seeing if you can scale up with them. If you nurture those relationships, you will see second-stage growth." If you work on the manu- facturing side,", "then you work very closely with engineering firms.They will connect you to potential customers if you build those personal relationships." Of course, the unspoken as- sumption is that your product or service is high quality & delivered on time at a fair price.
- 7. 6 Is social media right for you? "Social media may have been viewed as a luxury item in the past, but now it's a 'must' invest- ment, especially for second-stage companies," So the question is really about the mix. Do you need to be on Facebook & Instagram ? Twitter & LinkedIn? Vine? Google+? The key is to know how your customers want to interact & how this tactic executes your marketing strate- gy.The goal is not to just jump on every form of social media in ready-fire-aim style. It's more important for you to understand & how this activity gets you closer to the end goal: more customers. For example, if you are a retail store, maybe you want to be on more visual channels because it's easier to show off your new merchandise & interact with customers. But if you're a B-to-B auto parts supplier, maybe you don't need an Instagram account but on- ly a LinkedIn & Google+. & for most companies, dealing in social media is probably not your only marketing tactic. Still, it is important to have a presence online so people can find you in search engines — & you can monitor what people are saying about you. "Word of mouth, social media they call it now, has become increasingly important,". "You cannot ig- nore it.You need to have a very specific strategy on how to use it. & you have to be able to monitor it.You need to be able to deal directly with the negative comments. Monitor your reputation & turn any negative into a positive by making good on a situation or going the ex- tra mile to do the right thing for the customer."
- 8. 7 Are you being consistent? One of Meredith Kerekes' pet peeves is companies that don't practice strategic integrated marketing campaigns. Did your eyes just gloss over? Yeah.You're not alone.That's the term your marketing team will use, but it's really a simple concept:Your marketing is consistent with all of your customers. "It seems like it would be common sense," said Kerekes, who worked with P&G Co.'s luxury brands & recently founded Grey Label Group with partner Stephen Roginson. "Your online promotion should be the same as your in-store promotion. But so few businesses practice this. Make sure you are being consistent & cohesive. So of- ten in marketing we silo communications into human resources, marketing, sales, etc., but it's important to break down those silos & have a consistent brand voice." "For second- stage businesses, the thing that stands out to me as being important now is how it's an al- ways-on consumer", "Consumers are expecting a seamless experience, & if they don't get it, they'll walk away."
- 9. 8 Are you ready to evolve? As you develop your marketing strategy, your actual tactics may need to evolve over time. Social media, now a staple, once was new. Now, you have to think about the next steps & how they may — or may not — benefit your firm. For example, consumer preferences are moving toward images & video online. Think about it:What piques your interest in a gadget? A great photo or a page of jargon? You want all the technical details when you get ready to make a purchase, but you snag a customer first with a photo. Though be wary with video: It has to be relevant, well-executed & appropriate to the medium to be effective.There's nothing more annoying than being forced to watch a badly produced three-minute video when it would have taken you 30 seconds to get the information by reading. Execution, as in all things, is critical. "It's important to look at the prevalence of how images outrank words in search, especially as it relates to social media". "If you want people to share your content, it's infinitely better to share an image than text." You don't want to have a separate mobile-optimized site, like mobi.website.com. "It affects your search ability & your search rankings." It also means your customers won't abandon you because they have to suffer through too-tiny text on the mobile version of your website or go & download a specific app. & that's good for business.
- 10. 9 Are you spreading your own message? Marketing budgets are, of course, slim. Second-stage companies don't have the dol- lars to chase every fad or idea.You do good work in the community, meeting others who might think of you as a potential vendor in the future. Plus, it gives you insight to how you're perceived "It's amazing how much more you get than you give when you sign up for duty on a committee that is unrelated to your business". "You start to hear about your product through different voices that may or may not be your customers. It's valuable replay." Plus, added Spender, think about whether you have some sort of societal purpose that you can talk about.That gives you organizations to get involved with & brings authenticity to your message. & authenticity is a concept that all of our experts said is critical. "You need to be more than just a sale to someone. "Think about the change you are trying to create for your customer but also the change you are try- ing to create in the world. Maybe that's hyperbole, but I think that companies that think that way, it makes a big difference to people."
- 11. 10 How do you hire an agency? There is no secret sauce for this one, unfortunately. "When you are hiring an agency or in- ternal resources, it's critical that they fit the culture of the organization. "You will find people with the skill set & who are smart, but they have to understand what you are trying to accom- plish with the business & where you are going." How much should you pay? "There's an end- less supply of formulas that businesses use to determine budgets, some of which prove to be more meaningful than others. "Often, a simple payback mentality is a solid starting point. Project how much revenue/profit you expect to generate — or would need to generate — to pay back every dollar you spend, & develop your marketing strategy from there.This ap- proach also provides a good "gut check" of whether the business return you need seems re- alistic.While a company like Johnson & Johnson can spend $10 million to $20 million on a new corporate bring campaign, you don't have to spend like that to be effective. At Lovio George, discovery typically starts at $10,000, depending on the sample size.The bulk of the bill is usually spent on advertising, not bring & marketing.