The Three Purposes Of Marketing
The Three Purposes Of Marketing
What is the purpose of marketing? If I ask 100 business people this simple question, I'll get 100 different answers. Some people would say marketing's job is to get your name out in the marketplace. Others would say marketing positions your company or builds your brand name. Most hope marketing generates sales. Others would say that marketing's job is to generate leads that are then handed over to the sales department. Still others would say it's to build brand awareness, hoping people remember the name when they go to buy. And there's always the group that just says marketing's job is "to make money."
All of these answers are partially right. All of the answers are results of what happens when your marketing and advertising does what it is supposed to do.
Marketing is supposed to do three things:
Objective #1: Capture the attention of your target market (prospects). Although this seems straight forward, there are right ways and wrong ways to do this. Our method that ensures you always do it the right way. Unfortunately, it's done the wrong way 99 percent of the time.
Objective #2: Facilitate the prospect's decision-making process. Teach and train people how to make the best purchasing decision. Give them enough information to facilitate their making the best decision possible when buying what you have to sell.
You have prospects who need to buy what you sell. There are plenty of people who are starving and craving information and solutions you can provide. Because they're not experts at what you do, they don't know the benchmarks or the relevant issues surrounding the decision. They don't know how to make the best decision, which gives you an opportunity to guide them through this process. Your job is to share information to help them make the best decision possible. If the best decision is to buy from you-and it should be-then that's all the better. You should think of yourself as the "fountain from whence all knowledge flows," at least knowledge relevant to what you're selling.
All business owners and stakeholders want the same things: They want more new customers and less competition, more profitability and less waste, more retention and less turnover among their best employees, better results from their marketing and advertising, more loyalty from their customers, and higher conversion ratios for their salespeople. In short, they want to make more money.
Your prospects and customers want the same things. They want to feel confident that their money is well spent and their purchasing decisions are wise. They want to get the best deal in terms of both price and value. You never hear anybody say, "I shopped eight car dealerships and negotiated the best possible price, then decided to buy where I got the third best deal." No! People intuitively want to make the best decision possible, for them, and not feel like they have to second-guess themselves all the time.
So, we have two sets of values: The business wants more customers, more loyal customers and higher margins. Customers want to feel confident that the get the best possible deal in terms of overall value. The process and principles that govern the matching of those two sets of values are the same for every business.
As the marketer, "all" you have to do is figure out what's important to your prospects, educate them about what constitutes the best deal in your area, and then provide quantifiable proof that you provide that best deal in terms of price and value. If you communicate that message properly, your prospects and customer will pay attention to the message, believe you, and then take action. They will then get what they want from you: the best deal in terms of price and value with the confidence that they are making the best decision possible for them.
The problem is most businesses don't hold up their end of the bargain. Instead of using marketing to build a case that facilitates the decision-making process, most companies fill their marketing with self-serving hyperbole, fluff and platitudes that are only a thinly veiled way to say, "Buy from me because I want you to give your money to me instead of somebody else." That's why people become jaded and resist marketing. They tend to either dismiss it or become skeptical of the messages. But you don't want to breed skepticism! You want your prospects to say that they'd have to be absolute fools to do business with anyone else but you, regardless of price!
Objective #3: Give your customers a specific, low-risk, easy-to-take action that further facilitates their ability to make a good decision. Lower the risk of taking the next step in the buying process so you can further educate them.
You can't cram everything that a person needs to know into one advertisement. You have to find a way to give them more information-and you do this via marketing tools-reports, websites, audio CDs, and CD ROMs.
Have you ever bought a new home from a builder? They have lots of ways to advertise and promote, one being the Sunday paper in the New Homes section. But if you look in that section of the newspaper, you'll see that none of the ads there accomplishes the three objectives of marketing: 1) to capture the attention of the target market, 2) facilitate their decision-making process by educating them about what they need to know, and 3) give them a low-risk way to become more educated and take the next step to further the buying process. Those ads don't do this. Instead, they feature beautiful, happy, smiling people, pictures of houses and floor plans, price ranges of homes, and maps to various neighborhoods.
The ads all look virtually identical and contain similar pictures and words. From the prospect's standpoint, they are the same. There's nothing to get their attention, no acknowledgement of what the customers needs or problems might be. And, there's nothing in any of the ads to educate the prospect. There's nothing to facilitate their decision-making processes. There's nothing to show them what they need to know or tell them what issues to consider. How many things do you need to know when buying a new home? Are you an expert on lumber, plumbing, masonry, electrical, insulation, flooring, framing, roofing, finish out, and the 613 other relevant, pertinent issues involved with building a home? Of course not. And you won't be after reading those ads, either.
I'm not saying every buyer wants to know all that stuff; I am saying that all buyers would like to at least be aware of the relevant issues that are at stake. With these ads, all you know is that smiling people supposedly live there, and they all have floor plans and maps to neighborhoods. All of these ads are ineffective because prospective buyers want and need to be educated-so they can feel confident when making their decision. Nobody is providing this information. The first one who does, wins.
Then there's no low-risk way for the prospect to take the next step in the buying process. The only option these ads give is to come into the model home. You say, "That's low risk." The heck it is! If you're just thinking about buying a new home, and the only option is to come to a model home that's 45 minutes from your house, and you know that it will stocked with starving salespeople who will do everything in their power to force you to buy that home on the spot, is that low risk?
All of the ads fail miserably on this level; as a result, they get lost in the shuffle of all the other ads.
There's a better way to handle this situation.
Why do you think that marketing people always feel forced into a price-competitive situation? If you feel like that's the case in your business, it's your own fault. Your lack of marketing ability has led to a situation where there are no distinctions between you and your competitors. You haven't introduced the proper parameters or educated your prospects on the relevant issues. You've made no offers to lower the risk of taking the next step.
Effective marketing accomplishes all three objectives. It causes your prospects and customers to conclude: "I would have to be an absolute fool to do business with anyone else but you regardless of price."
If you feel that you're always competing on price, it's because price is the only relevant variable you've given your prospects to consider, and from the prospect's perspective, all things are equal, so they would be fools not to demand a lower price.
The Three Purposes Of Marketing - To learn more about this author, visit Ernst Marsig's Website.
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Surprisingly few people can even tell you the purposes of marketing; let alone how to achieve those primary purposes.
What is the purpose of marketing? If I ask 100 business people this simple question, I'll get 100 different answers. Some people would say marketing's job is to get your name out in the marketplace. Others would say marketing positions your company or builds your brand name. Most hope marketing generates sales. Others would say that marketing's job is to generate leads that are then handed over to the sales department. Still others would say it's to build brand awareness, hoping people remember the name when they go to buy. And there's always the group that just says marketing's job is "to make money."
All of these answers are partially right. All of the answers are results of what happens when your marketing and advertising does what it is supposed to do.
Marketing is supposed to do three things:
Objective #1: Capture the attention of your target market (prospects). Although this seems straight forward, there are right ways and wrong ways to do this. Our method that ensures you always do it the right way. Unfortunately, it's done the wrong way 99 percent of the time.
Objective #2: Facilitate the prospect's decision-making process. Teach and train people how to make the best purchasing decision. Give them enough information to facilitate their making the best decision possible when buying what you have to sell.
You have prospects who need to buy what you sell. There are plenty of people who are starving and craving information and solutions you can provide. Because they're not experts at what you do, they don't know the benchmarks or the relevant issues surrounding the decision. They don't know how to make the best decision, which gives you an opportunity to guide them through this process. Your job is to share information to help them make the best decision possible. If the best decision is to buy from you-and it should be-then that's all the better. You should think of yourself as the "fountain from whence all knowledge flows," at least knowledge relevant to what you're selling.
All business owners and stakeholders want the same things: They want more new customers and less competition, more profitability and less waste, more retention and less turnover among their best employees, better results from their marketing and advertising, more loyalty from their customers, and higher conversion ratios for their salespeople. In short, they want to make more money.
Your prospects and customers want the same things. They want to feel confident that their money is well spent and their purchasing decisions are wise. They want to get the best deal in terms of both price and value. You never hear anybody say, "I shopped eight car dealerships and negotiated the best possible price, then decided to buy where I got the third best deal." No! People intuitively want to make the best decision possible, for them, and not feel like they have to second-guess themselves all the time.
So, we have two sets of values: The business wants more customers, more loyal customers and higher margins. Customers want to feel confident that the get the best possible deal in terms of overall value. The process and principles that govern the matching of those two sets of values are the same for every business.
As the marketer, "all" you have to do is figure out what's important to your prospects, educate them about what constitutes the best deal in your area, and then provide quantifiable proof that you provide that best deal in terms of price and value. If you communicate that message properly, your prospects and customer will pay attention to the message, believe you, and then take action. They will then get what they want from you: the best deal in terms of price and value with the confidence that they are making the best decision possible for them.
The problem is most businesses don't hold up their end of the bargain. Instead of using marketing to build a case that facilitates the decision-making process, most companies fill their marketing with self-serving hyperbole, fluff and platitudes that are only a thinly veiled way to say, "Buy from me because I want you to give your money to me instead of somebody else." That's why people become jaded and resist marketing. They tend to either dismiss it or become skeptical of the messages. But you don't want to breed skepticism! You want your prospects to say that they'd have to be absolute fools to do business with anyone else but you, regardless of price!
Objective #3: Give your customers a specific, low-risk, easy-to-take action that further facilitates their ability to make a good decision. Lower the risk of taking the next step in the buying process so you can further educate them.
You can't cram everything that a person needs to know into one advertisement. You have to find a way to give them more information-and you do this via marketing tools-reports, websites, audio CDs, and CD ROMs.
Have you ever bought a new home from a builder? They have lots of ways to advertise and promote, one being the Sunday paper in the New Homes section. But if you look in that section of the newspaper, you'll see that none of the ads there accomplishes the three objectives of marketing: 1) to capture the attention of the target market, 2) facilitate their decision-making process by educating them about what they need to know, and 3) give them a low-risk way to become more educated and take the next step to further the buying process. Those ads don't do this. Instead, they feature beautiful, happy, smiling people, pictures of houses and floor plans, price ranges of homes, and maps to various neighborhoods.
The ads all look virtually identical and contain similar pictures and words. From the prospect's standpoint, they are the same. There's nothing to get their attention, no acknowledgement of what the customers needs or problems might be. And, there's nothing in any of the ads to educate the prospect. There's nothing to facilitate their decision-making processes. There's nothing to show them what they need to know or tell them what issues to consider. How many things do you need to know when buying a new home? Are you an expert on lumber, plumbing, masonry, electrical, insulation, flooring, framing, roofing, finish out, and the 613 other relevant, pertinent issues involved with building a home? Of course not. And you won't be after reading those ads, either.
I'm not saying every buyer wants to know all that stuff; I am saying that all buyers would like to at least be aware of the relevant issues that are at stake. With these ads, all you know is that smiling people supposedly live there, and they all have floor plans and maps to neighborhoods. All of these ads are ineffective because prospective buyers want and need to be educated-so they can feel confident when making their decision. Nobody is providing this information. The first one who does, wins.
Then there's no low-risk way for the prospect to take the next step in the buying process. The only option these ads give is to come into the model home. You say, "That's low risk." The heck it is! If you're just thinking about buying a new home, and the only option is to come to a model home that's 45 minutes from your house, and you know that it will stocked with starving salespeople who will do everything in their power to force you to buy that home on the spot, is that low risk?
All of the ads fail miserably on this level; as a result, they get lost in the shuffle of all the other ads.
There's a better way to handle this situation.
Why do you think that marketing people always feel forced into a price-competitive situation? If you feel like that's the case in your business, it's your own fault. Your lack of marketing ability has led to a situation where there are no distinctions between you and your competitors. You haven't introduced the proper parameters or educated your prospects on the relevant issues. You've made no offers to lower the risk of taking the next step.
Effective marketing accomplishes all three objectives. It causes your prospects and customers to conclude: "I would have to be an absolute fool to do business with anyone else but you regardless of price."
If you feel that you're always competing on price, it's because price is the only relevant variable you've given your prospects to consider, and from the prospect's perspective, all things are equal, so they would be fools not to demand a lower price.
The Three Purposes Of Marketing - To learn more about this author, visit Ernst Marsig's Website.
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John PowerJohn Power, founder of Biltmore Franchise Consulting, has extensive experience developing and marketing franchises and business opportunities. He has been in and around franchising for over twenty years. From 1980 through 1990 he conceptualized, organized, and developed the American Video Association. He grew AVA to 2,000 national members, before selling the company it 1990. It was later merged into another home video marketing company. From 2000 to 2005 he worked as a contract marketing and human resources consultant to several local and national companies. In 2005 Mr. Power began working as a franchise development consultant on a full-time basis. Since that time he has helped more than three dozen companies initiate and develop their franchising program. He notes that there are many companies interested in developing a franchise program, and who need his specialized assistance. Mr. Power is a “hands-on” franchise consultant. He said, “I am the ‘nuts and bolts’ person who tends to the details for my clients.” Mr. Power holds a B.S. degree with a major in Marketing. See: www.biltmorefranchise.com You may contact Mr. Power at: jpower@biltmorefranchise.co - Visit John Power's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
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Joe DagerJoe Dager is President of Business901, a progressive coaching company providing no-nonsense direction in areas such as Lean Six Sigma Marketing and organized referral marketing. What others say: In the past 20 years, Joe and I have collaborated on many difficult issues. Joe’s ability to combine his expertise with “out of the box” thinking is unsurpassed. He has always delivered quickly, cost effectively and with ingenuity. A brilliant mind that is always a pleasure to work with.” - James R. If you want to learn more about Business901, start a conversation with us. We can be found @ Web/Blog: Business901.com Web/Blog: FundingYourNonprofit.com LinkedIn Profile Follow me on Twitter - Visit Joe Dager's Website |
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David AchesonDavid Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns. David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website |
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As an independent film producer, his upstart film fund Aliquot Films is currently producing a films with Spike Lee and Abel Fererra (starring Ethan Hawke and Dennis Hopper.)
Jay's entrepreneurial spirit is irrepressible. He’s the owner of five companies, a professional speaker and trainer, international real estate developer/investor, extreme sport enthusiast and emerging philanthropist. Jay resides in NYC with his wife Jamie, son Milo and dog Cooper. Visit Jay's official website: www.JayKubassek.com - Visit Jay Kubassek's Website |
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John AlexanderJohn has taught keyword research and SEO skills to small groups of business owners and Webmasters from over 80 different countries world wide since 2002. John is also the Director of Search Engine Academy ; Co-director of Training at Search Engine Workshops offering live, SEO Workshops with his partner SEO educator Robin Nobles, author of the very first comprehensive online search engine marketing courses at SEO Training Online and the SEO Workshop Resource Center. I look forward to hearing from you! - Visit John Alexander's Website |
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