EFFECTIVE MARKETING - What we need is not always what we get

Marketing - Do we get it right?

I am sure that there are very many excellent marketing approaches in the business world but often the marketing approach is not fully integrated with  the way the business is going. Malcolm McDonald from Cranfield Business School characterised the problems thus:

• Growing vulnerability to environmental change
• Too many products
• Pricing confusion
• Wasted promotion
• Meaningless numbers
• internal strife between departments

Perhaps you recognise the symptoms because I do. Too often marketing has been confused with promotion and sales and much advice that I have received has been sales and promotion advice and not marketing at all.

In the textbooks and in real life as well, marketing is defined as " the identification and profitable satisfaction of customer needs". This is a simple definition but one that is often operationally difficult to achieve and meet.
Marketing should have 3 components:

1.Identifying needs
2.Satisfying needs
3.Making a profit

Marketing is therefore a process that needs to be a fundamental part of our business planning -- but it is often not a fundamental part of it. It is frequently an add on and an afterthought and this is where the problems commence.

Marketing should be helping business units identify customer needs and satisfy them at a profit. This means helping us identify current and future products and services that are likely to be winners, learn from competitors, identify our own strengths and weaknesses and deliver excellent service and experience that people want to come back for.

The first thing we need to try and do is identify what the business is about -- the business is not defined solely by itself,by its articles of association etc -- According to Peter Drucker, this can only be answered from outside. Therefore the mission of any business is to satisfy its customers' needs. This is probably more important than accounts and sales reports but is often omitted in the final analysis. We should constantly ask external people how we are viewed and what we need to do in the light of this information to change our mission and our vision for what our company is about.

If we understand our customers and their needs well enough and can meet them -- then the need for high spending on sales teams, advertising and publicity will not be that great and the customer should be ready to buy and we have moved from selling\publicity to a really effective marketing approach.

Selling is the last stage of marketing and if the marketing job has been done well then it will still be challenging but not impossible. The worst scenario we can have is to try to sell someone a product\service we think they want when they actually don't want it. No repeat business there then!

How you might wish to approach the branding of your company.