Monday, October 2, 2017

Things that Marketers Know


Having worked with many non-marketers in organization leadership teams, it has occurred to me that many things that I think are "common sense" are not so common for non-marketers. That is to say that skilled marketers are intuitive about some things that non-marketers are not. Here is my list of things that skilled marketers just know (or think about) that others may not:

  • What things will create an emotional response for different types of people
  • What will increase a product's impulse purchase appeal
  • What simple phases and messages will cause something to go viral
  • What words and phrases have the most power to cause someone to make a purchase
  • How to pick the right target customers for different products or services
  • Where a person is most likely go to get information about your product or service
  • How to stay in front of people and build relationships
  • The need to minimize the steps or barriers to purchase
  • How to "close the sale"
  • How to get people to "buy now"
  • Developing the right angle to get publications to cover your story
  • How to generate massive proactive publicity
  • Where to place a product on a shelf or in a store to maximize its visibility
  • How to upsell
  • How to bundle or unbundle products and services to maximize sales
  • How to create reference prices to increase the average price paid
  • How to use price segmentation to increase revenues and profitability
  • How to signal quality through pricing
  • How to use exclusivity to increase demand
  • The importance of location
  • The importance of timing
  • The importance of listening to needs
  • How to plant doubt about or reposition a competitor
  • How to stand out in a sea of sameness
  • That "less is more" in package design and messaging
  • What the visual "strike zone" is in any advertisement
  • The importance of brand identity consistency
  • When to be consistent and when to "mix it up" with unpredictability 
  • How to plant ideas in people's minds and make them think that the ideas were their own
  • How to connect with anyone on a personal and emotional level
  • With a few simple questions, knowing what is the primary driver in a person's life
  • Related to this, knowing where in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs a person primarily resides

So, when you think, "well, this is just common sense," it may not be. It may be something that is learned over time by skilled marketers. 

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