{"id":4310,"date":"2011-05-04T12:55:17","date_gmt":"2011-05-04T12:55:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.questionpro.com\/?p=4310"},"modified":"2026-01-23T03:28:49","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T10:28:49","slug":"we-are-all-in-the-marketing-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.questionpro.com\/blog\/we-are-all-in-the-marketing-business\/","title":{"rendered":"We are ALL in the Marketing Business"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article originally appeared on the AMEX Open Forum<\/a>. \u00a0I’m writing about “marketing” in general. \u00a0But you can easily make this apply to market research.<\/em><\/p>\n

With today’s technology, it’s easy and much more fun to integrate functions that were considered separate departments – but now can work together.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Why are you in business?\u00a0 Let\u2019s cut through all those warm and fuzzy reasons and get right to it.\u00a0 You\u2019re in business to make money (preferably you keep more than you make).<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not here to minimize the significance of the products or services that you sell.\u00a0 After all, if it weren\u2019t for what you\u2019re offering, you wouldn\u2019t have a business.\u00a0 But this is where we all get caught up in a modern misconception that we are in the widget business.\u00a0 And it\u2019s this fallacy that is actually at cause when sales are slumped.<\/p>\n

LEARN ABOUT:<\/strong> Time to Value<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Mousetraps don\u2019t sell themselves<\/strong><\/p>\n

Your mouse trap really isn\u2019t going to sell itself.\u00a0 Go ahead and give it a try.\u00a0 Build a bunch of product and pile it from floor to ceiling and watch what happens.\u00a0 \u201cOf course nothing happens,\u201d you say \u201cbecause you need sales people to sell it.\u201d\u00a0 This is very true.<\/p>\n

Now, go get some sales people and show them your product.\u00a0 If it\u2019s small enough, they might be able to actually carry it around and push it on their mothers and neighbors.\u00a0 Some will be wildly successful and many won\u2019t.\u00a0 That\u2019s because selling in today\u2019s environment requires what I like to call an \u201cattractor strategy\u201d.\u00a0 You might call it marketing.<\/p>\n

LEARN ABOUT:<\/strong> Purchasing Process<\/a><\/p>\n

Throwing sales people WITHOUT a marketing strategy and marketing support is what we do when we think we\u2019re in the widget business.<\/p>\n

You might think that I\u2019m going to take you down the long argument about what\u2019s sales and what\u2019s marketing.\u00a0 I won\u2019t.\u00a0 For small businesses who wear ten hats at a time, they are one and the same.\u00a0 When you hire a sales person and don\u2019t give them marketing materials or a web site or anything, they will eventually start creating marketing materials themselves.\u00a0 Not elegant, not pretty, but the only way they\u2019re going to have a chance at being successful.<\/p>\n

What happens when you decide you\u2019re in the marketing business?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The first thing that happens is you take your attention OFF the widget and put it ON the people who are most likely to give you money for it. Take a moment and do that.\u00a0 Ignore the widget and focus JUST on the people who will give you money.<\/p>\n

If you force your customers to\u00a0 focus on the widget, then they don\u2019t see any difference between your widget and the other guys.\u00a0 So they complain about price and everything else.\u00a0 Widgets don\u2019t have value \u2013value is what you uncover about the person who will give you money.<\/p>\n

Your customers will only give you money if you address what\u2019s important to them when they are buying what you are selling.\u00a0 Think about FedEx.\u00a0 They don\u2019t sell envelopes or boxes \u2013 they sell \u201cgetting your package delivered by 10:30am\u201d because THAT is what\u2019s important to their customer and that is what their customers pay top dollar for.<\/p>\n

Come up with a list of five to seven items that are important to your customers.\u00a0 Don\u2019t list features, list things they might actually say to themselves.\u00a0 For example, if you were a mover, what might be important to your customer is that you don\u2019t break their stuff.\u00a0 The feature might be the wrapping, or packing, but they don\u2019t care how you wrap it or carry it, just that their stuff shows up looking exactly like it did when it left their home.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s this magical list of five to seven items that trip your customer\u2019s \u00a0trigger that should drive how your widget occurs out in the marketplace.<\/p>\n

Marketing systems have value to customers and to buyers<\/strong><\/p>\n

In his bestselling book Built to Sell<\/em><\/a> John Warrillow\u2019s character, Alex learns that a business that runs a like a system or money machine increases in value as well as in appeal to buyers and owners alike.\u00a0\u00a0 Alex develops a marketing system that includes a standard product and service.\u00a0 Then he created a standard way to sell, create, deliver and pay for the service, informed by customer behavior and journey analytics<\/a>. The changes that he made turned his business into a repeatable, teachable, sellable business that customers valued and he enjoyed running.<\/p>\n

Being in the marketing business is more fulfilling<\/strong><\/p>\n

Being in the marketing business (even if you make physical product) is so much more fulfilling because you spend your days looking for ways to make your customers happier than they were the day before.\u00a0 It\u2019s like being Santa every day.<\/p>\n

If you aren\u2019t really a people person, then, by all means, run your business from where you get\u00a0 the most joy and can bring the most value.\u00a0 But be sure to find someone to run that business that LOVES your customers and is committed to bringing them more satisfaction and ease in living their life through your product and service.<\/p>\n

Putting your company in the marketing business doesn\u2019t negate your product or service.\u00a0 It brings more depth and differentiation to it.\u00a0 When you focus on identifying your ideal customer, and providing a product or service that\u2019s important to them \u2013 you will reap more profit for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\t

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