Marketing Strategy
One of the best articles written about marketing strategy in my opinion is by Sergio Zyman. Coke’s former Chief Marketing Officer, better remembered for the introduction of New Coke, nevertheless, a marketing guru. He wrote the following article for the Globe and Mail.
“Basic marketing rules shouldn’t be forgotten by the dot-coms”
Selling more stuff to more people to make more money is the purpose of marketing, whether you’re a big brand promoting a product on-line or a dot-com advertising offline.
Even with the emergence of the “Internet Age” and the impact it has had on the way companies do business, the basic premise of successful marketing remains the same. If a business positions and presents its product so that it is attractive to consumers, and if the firm communicates well and gives them reasons to buy it, they will.
If it’s that simple then why are so many companies having difficulties when it comes to marketing online? The quick answer is that they are just not applying the basic principles of marketing to the Internet.
Just because we are now using the Internet to promote products and services it doesn’t mean we must reinvent the principles of marketing. That would be like reinventing accounting rules for e-business.
So what are these principles of marketing? There are four general rules that, when applied online or offline, will help ensure that a business will more stuff to more people, ultimately making more money.
Rule #1: Before anything, a business needs to clearly define where it wants to go and what it wants to achieve. More time needs to be focused on results, not tactics.
Rule #2: A strategic road map must then be planned. The business must decide what it needs to get to its goal, and which way it should take. Strategy should be at the heart of everything a company does, and it is important to create a value proposition that differentiates it from thecompetition.
Rule #3: Next the vehicles must be decided–these are thetactics and marketing tools to use to get to the destination. What many companies forget is that marketing is an investment, and that money must be spent to make money. Business must invest in activities that will enhance its products and services and make them stand out, while giving consumers more reasons to buy them.
Many online companies know marketing is something they should be doing, but rarely do they have an understanding of what this means. More often than not, many use advertising, in place of strategy. The pricey ad is developed and people may really like it, but they don’t end up buying the product.
Rule #4: Finally business must measure results by defining what they should be, and then track them. From there it can build on what works and adjust what doesn’t. If the business doesn’t track what it’s doing, how does it know if it’s working? Result-oriented marketing is key to good marketing.
Marketing, online or offline, has to be tested and measured, just like any other science. Marketing is about experimentation, measurement, analysis, refinement and replication.
Politicians are, by far, the best marketers. They do everything outlined above–they have their destination and know what they want to do; they build strategy and try to differentiate themselves from their competitors; implement various marketing tools to get the message and image across; and very importantly, they measure everything continuously to ensure they are in tune and in flavor with constituents.
No company can quite compare to this, but many could certainly learn from it.