Marketing seems to have gotten so complicated. People speak of CRM and SEO. Successfully navigating social media seems difficult for many people. There are an increasing number of new communication platforms. How does one plan media across so many different channels? Marketing research now includes online focus groups, eye tracking and brain scanning among several other high-tech approaches. And then there is big data analytics. Where will it all end?
And yet, I would encourage marketers to revisit good old fashioned common sense.
Who is our customer? What are her needs? How does she perceive us? Where does she shop? How does she make her purchase decisions? Who or what informs her buying choices? What stands in the way of her buying our products? How can we make our products more appealing to her? What messages will resonate with her? How can we get her to buy more of our stuff? How can we better connect with her on an emotional level?
These are the simple common sense questions that every marketer should ask. The funny thing is that so many marketers get caught up in the tools and tactics that they forget to ask the fundamental questions.
Don't forget to use common sense when you are developing marketing programs and campaigns.
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.
Common sense: noun - the ability to think and behave in a reasonable way and to make good decisions; sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts; good sense and sound judgment in practical matters.
Here is a little secret that I have learned. You can take many marketing courses. You can read dozens of marketing books. You can know everything there is to know about brand positioning or advertising or search engine optimization, but if you don't have common sense, you will not be a highly successful marketer.
There are may types of intelligence. IQ measures one type. You have heard of emotional intelligence. There is spatial intelligence. Linguistic intelligence. Kinesthetic intelligence. Musical intelligence. Existential intelligence. Logical-mathematical intelligence. Naturalist intelligence. And intra-personal intelligence. But the intelligence I am referring to is common sense. What do I mean by this?
You intuitively know how someone is going to behave. You know what is safe to do and what is not safe to do. You know how someone is going to react to something. You know the most logical places to look for something that is missing. You know what will work and what will not work. You know what will motivate people and what will enervate them. You know what someone is thinking. You know what is on his or her mind. And you know what you can say that will make him or her feel better. You come up with simple ways to solve everyday problems. You can get things done without overthinking them. This is common sense.
How does this apply to marketing? You know who is most likely to buy your product and who is less likely to purchase it. You know what people are thinking and what you need to do or say to motivate them to buy your product. You know what is holding people back and you can help them overcome these barriers. You know where people are most likely to go to get their information. You know who they are mostly likely to believe. And you know the arguments that can best work to change their minds. And you know where they are most likely to go to purchase your product. And rather than following complex formulas or plans, you just do what you know will work. You keep it simple and you do what makes the most sense. This is common sense marketing.
Forget about the fancy buzz phrases. Forget about the new shiny objects. Forget about the latest marketing theory. Or the latest social media craze. Forget about the latest consulting jargon. Forget about the latest hot methodology. Just keep it simple and do what makes sense. This is common sense marketing. Never lose sight of good old common sense.
