Albert Szent-Gyorgyi Quote on Research
Research is to see what everybody else has seen, and to think what nobody else has thought
Albert Szent-Gyorgyi (Hungarian Biochemist, 1937 Nobel Prize for Medicine)
Understanding the customer as an important marketing tool
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Is there anything more important than understanding the customer?
The ability of the entrepreneur to put themselves into the shoes of their customers or prospects and to see the world from their perspective is probably the single most important characteristics of successful business people.
Some marketers call it “marketing by walking around” and many sales professional often refer to the ancient Greek philosopher Epictetus quote “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.”
Being a keen student of human behavior, observing, listening, and asking questions is the key.
Here are some of the most important questions you should be asking:
- Who are the current customers?
- Who are your desired customers?
- What do they really want / expect?
- What dot they THINK? Rational Benefits
- What do they FEEL? Emotional Benefits
- How do they ACT? What is the BUYING PROCESS? What people SAY is often very different to what people DO!
- Why do customers buy from you?
- Why do they buy from your competitors?
The next entry will provide you with just about every conceivable reason of why people actually buy!
Marketing communications are an ongoing process, similar to designing and building a house.
Marketing communications are an ongoing process, similar to designing and building a house.
It is then important to maintain and build the value of your marketing properties and prevent this value being depreciated through neglect of infrastructure or promotional activity by competitors.
Firstly the structure must be designed correctly, beginning with the foundations that will support any future building.
Unfortunately, many businesses do the equivalent of trying to put a roof on a house with no foundations or walls by asking marketers to jump straight into execution and promotion. And many marketing suppliers oblige them!
By demanding that marketing people produce a Website, Advertisement, Brochure, etc. before the business has answers to strategic questions and clear plans for long term communication, inevitably always ends up wasting time and money.
To get the best return on the marketing investment, time needs to be dedicated to answer the questions that assist in building a solid foundation for the marketing of the business. By starting at the bottom and working up, the business building process will be shorter, less painful and more profitable.
Having a Brand Identity is not enough
Brand recognition alone is useless. Today every plumber has a brand and a slogan on the side of his truck. The world is drowning in brands and slogans
Robert Bloom author and ex – Chairman of Publicis Worldwide
Although we are not there yet in either the USA or Australia, the sentiment is right – recognition alone is not enough!
Virtually every category of consumer product and service is now crowded and in some cases overcrowded with brands. However this is not the case in for most of the small and medium enterprise categories and this presents a tremendous opportunity for those that can create a brand identity that connects with their target audience.
Branding strategy is more than meeting functional needs
“Main purpose of branding is to get more people to buy more stuff for more years at a higher price.”
Marty Neumeier, author “The Brand Gap”
The purpose of branding is to become the name people think of immediately when they want what you sell.In the beginning, brands differentiated between products and services. Today they meet aspirational needs as well functional requirements. Brands are a means of means of self expression. They are a mirror, a status symbol, they reflect our dreams and embody our values.
The effects of emotional branding strategy
Emotionally based campaigns are not only more likely to produce very large business effects, but also produce more of them, outperforming rationally based campaigns on every single business measure.
Les Binet, an econometrician and business analyst, analyzed the 25 years and 1000-plus cases on the UK IPA Effectiveness Awards database
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