How to become a really good marketer in just about a minute? By remembering that you are not talking to data points, but to people, says Chris Wirthwein in ‘Brand Busters: 7 common mistakes marketers make’ (www.macmillanpublishersindia.com).
An effective marketing plan, according to him, is what talks to people, because people do not want to be forgotten or talked down to or made to look silly. “So, you need to show people you understand and care about them. You need to show up at the places they hang around. You need to say things they care about. And you don’t have the luxury of wasting heir time.”
To emphasise that people are emotional beings, not dots on a line graph, the author cites a Zen precept, ‘A finger pointing at the moon is not the moon.’ Research is the finger, and real people are the moon, he analogises. “And that’s it: a one-minute lesson in marketing excellence. Remember above all else to respect your audience as people, and you’ll survive even the deadliest of marketing mistakes.”
Wants vs needs
Taking up the world of marketing technical and scientific products, the book discusses common mistakes, such as talking ‘needs’ instead of ‘wants.’ Marketing is about choice, which means it is about wants, not needs, explains Wirthwein.
As example, he mentions the problem of Mark, a person who is in charge of a company’s information technology department. “He’s had some trouble with hard drives on the company’s servers; they’ve been unreliable, and others in the company have been complaining about losing data when the drives fail, which, in turn, leads to the problems of employees having poor access to the data they need to do their jobs.”
In this situation, what Mark needs is more reliable data storage, but what he wants is for the employees to get off his back and stop complaining about the poor performance of the equipment he is supposed to be taking care of, distinguishes the author, and asks: “Which do you think is a more compelling message: ‘Higher capacity, hot-swappable data storage,’ or ‘Now you can get the employees off your back?’”
Getting to ‘no’
Trying to please everyone is another common mistake, the author notes. To him, the most important word in the marketer’s dictionary is ‘No.’ This is one of the differences between sales and marketing, he observes: “Sales is all about getting to ‘yes,’ whereas, in a profound way, marketing is about getting to ‘no.’”
While, as a marketer, you want to find those prospects you can hand over to your salespeople who are going to nod all the way to the bank, what is more important is that you have to get a lot of heads shaking ‘no,’ instructs Wirthwein. “The reason, of course, is that the last thing you want to do is turn over bad prospects (wrong market segment) to your salespeople.”
Appealing to the wrong market segment does nothing but waste time, money, and effort, he advises. “So good marketing efforts must be built around the idea of weeding out the chaff – that is, quickly and efficiently excluding people for whom your product is really not right. When you do this, you increase the appeal your offer has for the people you really fit well.”
Price war
Of great value to those who are getting burnt by price wars is a chapter on the wrong belief that your price is too high. It opens with the narrative about the airline industry which the author considers to be a failure of colossal proportions. “The airline industry haemorrhaged money. And a weak, financially strapped industry simply cannot weather times when other events – such as 9/11 – cause a sharp decline in demand. Ultimately, you can’t ‘make it up in volume.’ Losing money is losing money, period,” the author frets.
Conceding that price is usually a consideration when making purchase decisions, he opines, however, that it is far from the most important factor in most purchase decisions, especially in business-to-business market, unless you make the price so low that people can’t help but buy, as in the example of the airline price war.
Also, when you cut price without trying other strategies for gaining a competitive advantage, the first thing you can lose is the trust and respect of your customers, Wirthwein cautions. “Every time I see a retailer advertising ‘new lower prices,’ my first thought is, ‘Hmm. I wonder how much they were ripping me off before?’”
A sobering read.
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