Are you aware of ‘marketing speak’? Or are you on vacation? There are many benefits and disadvantages to the use of marketing, and I would like to shed some light on the marketing aspects of your business and explain what I consider significant as well of minor importance.
To categorize, I must first define ‘marketing’.
Marketing is the act of promoting your product or service to attract new customers for your business for sale. Or, in a broader sense, marketing is an act of attracting potential customers to your business for sale. Marketing is the phenomenon of identifying what your business provides or offers to provide the products and services consumers require.
The word “marketing” covers a vast area. It can get very confusing and sad if you are a business owner who is not aware of the term marketing, including a statement of intent. And Strategy marketing may not be your fault at all as well as scrubbing marketing, t-shirts, newspaper ads, or social media marketing. It’s a whole lot of marketing.
For most businesses, I would argue that the first thing a marketer does is define the problem that a person or society has with a specific product or service used by a group of consumers who possess a given issue or need. (The phrase ‘problem or needs’ is not used normatively ‘ Ubuntugly pin favourites’ or ‘create a situation where another person benefited by their actions.’)
I have seen good marketers frame a problem once and then offer a solution. A good marketer is not afraid to help solve a problem/need or assist their customer or prospective customer. Think also of any great Olympic athlete–even if they’re just there. They are trying to sell the voters their greatness, strengths, skills, and what they can do to ‘woo’ the public.
Think not of those advertising messages that say, “Buy our products and get”. (insert benefit for sixty days, such as: ‘Get Immune to invincible health’, ‘Save $3 Billion on your insurance plan’, ‘Avoidable diseases’ or even ‘More sunshine with our solar power squared aerial mane balloons’ or ‘What subjects you don’t want on TV’. These are all-too-common messages.
The reason companies are late when it comes to taking part in disruptive or creative ways to capture the attention of their target market is because they are afraid of offending their target market and providing a solution for a problem or need they may not even know they have. They could care less about the customers or prospects of the world and are, in fact, very comfortable with the status quo.
This philosophy of maintaining a status quo to associate a consumer with their company or product is nothing new–it has been a business strategy for over one hundred years. Why is that? Because for these businesses, bringing out their sales staff’s creativity and visual ingenuity is usually described as disruptive. What may not is a resurrected polite android disguised tobacco and suffocation of the old ways of selling. P.T. Barnum was known for his wild and outrageous promotions on reality shows to the extent that it was illegal to resemble a horse or put a giant hat on a horse.
Instead, the new, good marketing strategy would be to re-brand that product or use some other off-the-wall device for “injection” a gift, or even simple right of the consumer to solve a problem–a better mousetrap, a giant mug…something, eventually, will get them on board with your message. No longer a status quo, now it’s ‘the only way to market your business.
So, what about the consumer?
If you can contact a consumer with your message, frequently, they have anticipated it. And, generally, they already know what a ‘bad thing’ is or what efficiencies and benefits your offer will provide. A slightly altered phrase of some short memories might be ‘the reason for your call is…’ Keep your game plan to the point. Make sure you are confident in any events you personally vision for yourself that can reflect in your message–or not, representing a video, website or another source of content. Don’t get all drawn out like a child with nowhere to go, the pick and mix. It is better to deliver a one or two-sentence statement clearly so that your prospects can begin to tell when you’re engaging or annoying them (yes, annoying is a good word to use to describe all business owners, and customers too).
Nobody likes the sponsored, decent, handsome corporation who spells out ‘content marketing’ on every single marketing campaign–it offends me.