Marketing Dominatrix (aka - How To Stay On Top)
Marketing drives success. It's where strategy and creativity converge. It’s where ideas sizzle and innovation comes alive. Marketing is where concepts blossom, customer relationships begin and value is communicated. Without marketing, toplines would stagnate, bottomlines shrink and customers would remain prospects. It’s a great place to be!
Marketing is also a long-term process. It’s a series of sequenced activities directed at acquiring and keeping customers. Marketing works to create an environment where welcome mats are put out and doors open. The result — new customers. To achieve results, marketing must have a complete understanding of the customer; from the time they are labeled a prospect until they reach frequent flier status.
A sustained connection with today’s generationally fragmented customers isn’t easy. Much upfront learning has to take place. Marketing involves information, interpretation, preparation and execution. It’s a process built on identifying specific consumers “wants and needs”. And then, articulating and positioning your product or service in a way that is meaningful to prospective customers.
An effective marketing machine means consumers know who you are, what you offer, why it’s right for them and why you are the only answer. A fine-tuned marketing machine puts a dollar in one end and management sees twenty come out the other. Business acquisition costs are lowered, customer retention is high, marketing results are measurable and corporate profitability goes up.
However like most things these days marketing is changing. There’s turbulence in the air. Competitive rivalry is pressuring corporate America. Companies are rethinking the balance between localization and globalization, product focus and customer focus and of course, growth and profitability. Consumers are at a crossroads as well. They are being attacked from every angle; uncertainty is at an all time high. “Find me–follow me” advertising is everywhere and hitting hard. Too much throw it up against the wall mass selling has created disenfranchised, disengaged customers rapidly becoming savvy cynics.
Marketing is transforming to adjust to a new world. Transformation means the terms, buzzwords and lingo that shape marketing are constantly changing. So, if you want black and white, go to accounting. If you want comfortable chairs, go to HR. If you want to wear a baseball cap backwards, go to IT. But, if you want to be on the frontline turning strategy into action and using creativity to impact growth and profitability – and stay on top – reignite your company’s marketing.
NOTE For more information see the article Brand Response: Common Sense Marketing
© Lindsay Resnick
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