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Why Marketing Fails
- 6 reasons (or maybe just excuses?) why your marketing doesn't work
If marketing is meant to be so wonderful then why doesn't it deliver on its promise? If we understand why our marketing doesn't work then can we piece together a better way of of getting more customers? Is it time to 'get back to basics'?
Let me be specific about the main reasons why marketing activities might fail in your business. The list is simple.
- Lack of commitment
If you don't really believe in your product, or if you are not consistent and regular in the ways that you promote it, then the odds are that you will not succeed. Your plans must ensure that you have committed the appropriate resources and effort to do what it takes to make your product work.
- Lack of a clear benefit
It never hurts to state the obvious - you must sell something that people want. So, you have to get close to your customer (or potential customer) and find out what they really want, and examine what it is that you have to offer. Please don't make the things that you find easy or fun to make. Customers do not care about how much fun you've had. They want to know 'What's In It For Me' (WIIFM).
- Poor Positioning
If you look exactly the same as your competitors and you offer the same benefits at the same price, then why should customers bother to come to you? You need clarity about what it is that you offer and why customers should come to you. This, in turn, will inform you as to how to how to effectively promote and present yourself.
- KISS
Keep It Simple Stupid! We all seem to have an ability to complicate things without realising that simplicity, clarity, and focus will bring us the profits we seek.
- Paralysis by Analysis combined with dull thinking
This is normally brought on by attending too many inappropriate marketing courses and reading too many textbooks aimed at Professional Marketing Departments of large companies (where they are unlikely to be as flexible - or feel the need to change - as much as in a smaller business)!
Most of the problems for the growing business are those which can be called 'transactional' - in other words, things like making customer contacts, getting orders, meeting the right people. Despite this fact, most business support and advice either refuses to deal with delivering the practical hands-on support required or is stuck in its big business roots, which tends to be pre-occupied with administrative issues.
Keep It Simple Stupid! We all seem to have an ability to complicate things without realising that simplicity, clarity, and focus will bring us the profits we seek.
Action Point: Test Your Marketing Effectiveness
Score yourself in the following test. Be honest - and always recall specific examples of actions carried out, rather than imagining 'hoped-for' situations. Focus on something real, or even better, get someone else to score your business (a customer or a supplier would be in an ideal position to score you and give you some fascinating feedback at the same time).
Mark a percentage score for each of the following questions
1. We are totally committed to our marketing and sales plans (if we have them in the first place!)
0% - 10 - 20 - 30 - 40 - 50 - 60 - 70 - 80 - 90 - 100%
In Your dreams On a good day Got It!
2. Customers know exactly what they get if they come to us!
0% - 10 - 20 - 30 - 40 - 50 - 60 - 70 - 80 - 90 - 100%
In Your dreams On a good day Got It!
3. Customers know why we are different from the rest.
0% - 10 - 20 - 30 - 40 - 50 - 60 - 70 - 80 - 90 - 100%
In Your dreams On a good day Got It!
4. We make everything simple and easy to understand for our customers and for ourselves.
0% - 10 - 20 - 30 - 40 - 50 - 60 - 70 - 80 - 90 - 100%
In Your dreams On a good day Got It!
5. Decision-making is easy because we are clear about what we are trying to do.
0% - 10 - 20 - 30 - 40 - 50 - 60 - 70 - 80 - 90 - 100%
In Your dreams On a good day Got It!
Come back to this test once you have learned more about seeing things through the customers' eyes - the difference will be a revelation to you.
How did you score? I have yet to come across a business that, in it's heart of hearts, couldn't find a way to improve in most areas. Most people get that familiar comment that I used to get in my school reports, 'could do better'.
A few thoughts
- Can you think of any specific area where you could have done better?
- Can you think of anything that you could do this week, or even today, that could improve any of your scores?
- What's holding you back from getting on with these actions?
CONSIDER
A growing number of people feel that marketing (as it is commonly presented) is failing to deliver. Are you part of that number? Do you come out of marketing seminars and resent the intellectually fascinating but unearthed, disconnected way that the subject relates to real actions and results? Is this you?
SO WHAT?
As most marketing books claim, a new way of looking at things, a ' new paradigm' is required. What is needed is a way of finding and satisfying customers that is simple yet effective!!!
PROBLEMS WITH SALES AND MARKETING
When you listen to the comments that people make when talking about marketing, you can hear that it is help that they are actually seeking. The following are pretty standard comments:
- What they say: 'Our pricing is easily matched/bettered by our competitors who seem to surpass and outflank us.'
- What they mean: 'We're a pretty run-of-the-mill, mediocre organisation and our competition is at least as good as us. To be quite frank, sometimes I am pretty surprised that we do any business at all!'
- What they say: 'Advertising is getting more expensive and less effective; too much time and money is spent on sales promotion and we don't know how effective it is.'
- What they mean: 'We still do the same ads but we really haven't got a clue why we do it anymore - isn't doing the same thing and expecting a different result simply a definition of insanity?'
- What they say: 'Sales force costs are rising.'
- What they mean: 'I wonder why we can't sell our product as easily as in the past - personally I blame the sales force.'
- What they say: 'Our so-called 'innovative' projects often don't look much different from those of our competitors.'
- What they mean: 'When it comes to doing things differently, we are a pretty uninspired bunch of people.'
- What they say: 'A lot is being given away.'
- What they mean: 'In a desperate effort to sell more, we thought that we could improve margins by giving our stuff away for free, and now the punters don't see why they should pay the premium prices that we have to charge to recoup our losses from giving our product away in the first place.'
- What they say: 'We don't have a clear view of the future.'
- What they mean: 'Don't tell anyone but I think that we've lost the plot.'
It is only the last comment that concedes our own role in sorting out our business - most businesses look everywhere except to themselves to see how they can run a better business. Adopting 'bright marketing' principles will make your business more effective, more efficient and more profitable.
CONNECT
As the British Telecom adverts say 'It's good to talk'. Your customers should be treated like friends, trusted and trusting friends. Try treating them as such.
Randomly select say ten names from your customer database. Commit to contacting them all in the next week. However, when you contact them this time, try doing it as if you actually care - be more compassionate or loyal than you usually are. Use a more personal means of communicating - a personal phone call or a hand-written letter or postcard will always be more powerful than a faceless email. See if you don't notice the difference when you start making more effort to communicate with your clients. You don't have to phone up to sell - you can phone for a chat ('I was just thinking about you...' or 'I just realised that it is simply ages since we...')
SUMMARY
Think 'customers' all the time - look at your business through their eyes. Try and make it as easy as possible for people to do business with you. Customers are not some academic abstractions; they are real people with real needs and unless you can relate to them and their needs then you will not do very well in business.
about the author
Robert Craven is a keynote speaker and author of the best-selling business books ‘Kick-Start Your Business’ and ‘Customer Is King’. As MD of The Directors’ Centre www.directorscentre.com, the consultancy for growing businesses, he works with ambitious owner-managers to break through constraints on business growth. He can be contacted at rc@directorscentre.com +44 (0)1225 851044.
Robert Craven©2007, Capital Magazine.
publication details
First published in Capital Magazine - April 2007.
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