I have had a long career as a marketer. I have worked with Fortune 100 companies, pre-seed startups and everything in between across almost every product and service category, B2B and B2C. This is what I have learned over the years.
- Marketing always starts with customer insight gathered through qualitative and quantitative customer research.
- This implies that you have identified the optimal customer market segment for your product or service.
- Your product or service must meet an important customer need.
- Ideally, your product or service is superior to or different from existing products or services.
- A product or service that connects with people emotionally or experientially will fare much better than those that do not.
- If your product or service signals something positive about its intended customer, all the better. This is referred to "brand as a badge" or a "self-expressive brand."
- Related to this, if your brand shares important values with its intended customers, all the better.
- The decades old advertising formula of problem/solution still works very well.
- People tend to manage against these two scarce commodities - time and money. If your brand can save people time or money, it has an edge up on competitive brands.
- An exception to saving customers time, is to create a purchase experience that is so entertaining, interesting or engaging that they lose all track of time. Then the purchase experience itself becomes a part of the brand's unique value proposition.
- A brand that is available 24/7 and that ships quickly if ordered online has an advantage in the marketplace.
- Related to this, a brand that accepts every payment method - cash, personal checks, all credit cards, Venmo, PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, etc. has a distinct advantage.
- Make shopping quick and easy. Don't ask for the same information more than once. If the customer has bought with you before, allow for autofilling the customer's information.
- Follow up with customers who have started but not completed the online purchase process. Most online store platforms include this feature.
- Brands must tell a story. It could be a story about the product or service solving a specific problem or it could be a brand origin story.
- Awareness is the cornerstone of any strong brand. If there is no awareness, the brand might as well not exist at all. The first thing a marketer must do for any brand is build awareness.
- Widespread distribution leads to greater awareness and greater accessibility, two key components in building customer brand insistence, loyalty and advocacy. The one exception to this is a luxury brand whose demand is based on limited access at only the most exclusive establishments.
- Humor often increases the effectiveness of marketing communications, but only for brands for which humor is appropriate.
- Every brand should now have some (or many) digital components. These include a website, Facebook page, social media presence, email marketing automation, SEO, blogs, podcasts, YouTube videos, etc.
- Ideally, you are able to own the URL that is your brand's name followed by ".com."
- Proactive publicity, especially what might be labeled outrageous "publicity stunts," can provide some of the best media coverage at a very low cost.
- Carefully crafted taglines can immediately communicate what the brand stands for and why people should be interested in the brand. The taglines should be short, pithy, memorable and carefully crafted to communicate the brand's primary "unique value proposition."
- Trade shows and trade magazines are often the best ways to introduce and market new and existing B2B brands. There are many ways to maximize the impact of participating in a trade show. Unfortunately, that is a topic for another blog post.
- Whenever you can, collect a person's name and email address for future communication. This is especially true for trade show interactions with customers and potential customers.
- Each brand should develop and carefully manage its brand's identity system. This typically includes a name, logo or symbol, type fonts, colors and a tagline. But it can also include a scent, sound, or even a texture.
- Product development is a never ending task. One must always keep ahead of the competition. Product enhancements should be the result of ongoing customer discovery and feedback.
- The same goes for marketing strategies, tactics and campaigns. They need to evolve based on effectiveness feedback including A/B testing on different campaign concepts, subject lines, marketing copy and images.
- Going back to my first bullet, anyone who does not start with customer discovery and insight is not a real marketer - period!
I hope this helps in reminding you about what is important in developing good marketing.
