When you tell people you are in marketing or a related field these days, the knee jerk response seems to be “must be tough, it’s usually the first thing to go in a recession”. Like marketing is something to do with vanity, a self indulgent exercise that we take up when there’s loads of funds slooshing around. The problem is, for some companies who have experienced a degree of success in more bouyant times, this is often how they think. They’ve previously thrown money at marketing, not knowing what and if it will work and been lucky enough to have still increased business, more through luck than judgement. But, when times get tough, all of a sudden that marketing is a luxury or an expense.
I suppose that this mindset is not helped by the fact that traditional marketing was kind of like this. When there was surplus demand and not enough companies or products to supply it - it was a sellers market. It was enough to say here we are, take it or leave it. And it’s incredible how long this spectre of marketing has remained deeply ingrained in the minds of businesses, even to this day.
Maybe this all comes from the old traditional textbooks on business, or maybe it’s just that some business people haven’t grasped that they really need to be more marketing aware these days than ever before. It’s not enough to have a great product or process.
Safe to say, marketing is in transition. and probably more so over the last 5-10 years than ever before.
Consumers now have everything they need. There are more companies than ever supplying demand, most of which appear to offer exactly the same as each other.
This has shifted the dynamics to a buyers market where customers no longer respond to traditional methods of marketing and advertising. There’s too much of it and often people just don’t believe the claims. They need to be able to like and trust a company, before they will buy from it. So, with so much choice available, it is the customer that decides who they want to do business with and buy from.
Modern marketing and doing it right
So, is marketing an expense or an investment? Historically, you could say it was more of an expense. But done right, in a systematic way, using modern methods that puts the customers at the forefront, it most definitely is an investment.
And putting customers at the forefront is the key. We all know that it is easier and cheaper to sell more to an existing customer. But how many think in terms of the long term value of a customer when engaging and investing in marketing? To many it is still the thrill of the ‘kill’ and the ball is dropped thereafter.
A company that looks after its customers, getting them to refer and recommend them, rewarding them and exceeding on expectations will increase the initial investment in that lead no end, turning a one off transaction into a customer for life.
“When I see a customer walk through the door, I see $10,000 burned into their forehead” - said Tom Monaghan, founder of Domino’s Pizza’s.
It is this very mindset that turns the marketing expense into an investment.
But it is also more than this. As I said before, it’s not enough to say ‘here we are, this is what we do, this is our process, here’s pictures of our factory and our CEO and his wife’. Your customers are just not interested. They want to know the WIIFM factor - ‘what’s in it for me?’. Why should they use you rather than your competitor? What makes you different? How will you or your product solve their problems, enhance their lives, create a greater experience or free them from a frustration?
It’s not about you anymore, it’s about what you can do for them, it’s about knowing who your customers are, understanding their needs, wants and desires and developing products, processes and experiences that deliver exactly on that.
When you know this, it will help you to develop more cost effective marketing tactics and methods, which are more likely to bring the long term results, that will tranform what was deemed an expense into an investment.
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“Some of the dumbest people I know, know everything” — William Forbes
Word of mouth recommendation was always said to be the best form of publicity. But, when building a business it was just too slow.
Now that has all changed, word of mouth travels faster than any other form of marketing. Online forums and social networks such as Facebook can make or break reputations.
Disgruntled customers now have the perfect outlet to vent their frustrations - the Internet.
This is another reason why the behaviour of a company has now climbed up the marketing mix list.
It’s a shame that it’s mainly the smaller creative and innovative businesses that are embracing this concept, whilst many of the big corporates still don’t get it.
Marketing has changed. The fundamentals remain the same, but the techniques and technology are different.