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Marketing's Primary Goal Marketing is essentially the process of creating or directing an organization to be successful in selling a product or service that customers not only desire, but are willing to buy. Every aspect of a market offering is driven by the needs of potential customers. The starting point is always the customer. Value (marketing's true worth) is derived by the customer from their owning and using the product. Marketing’s goal is to bring prospects to the sales team using promotional techniques such as advertising, promotion, publicity, and public relations.
Companies Are Ultimately Searching For New Opportunities An expertly planned and executed marketing strategy may even negate the need for selling. Enticing more customers to contact you, the sales organization can dramatically improve their results. This action will allow salespeople to provide a drastically higher level of customer satisfaction instead of spending the majority of their working hours searching for someone to sell to.
Customer-Focused Marketing Is Known As SIVA. These are elements of the SIVA model (Solution, Information, Value, and Access): Solution - How appropriate is the solution to the customer's problem/need? Information - Does the customer know about the solution? If so, how and from whom do they know enough to let them make a buying decision? Value - Does the customer know the value of the transaction, what it will cost, and what the benefits are and what they might have to sacrifice? What are their rewards? Access - Where can the customer find the solution? How easily/locally/remotely can they buy it and take delivery?
Proper Planning Trying to convince a market segment to buy something they don't want is extremely expensive and seldom successful. Without additional consideration of the new marketing components that the internet has made important (personalization, participation, and peer-to-peer strategies) your continued success in the new electronic age are severely curtailed. The Internet is an irrevocable and unstoppable trend. Internet marketing is a now business imperative. Product - the product aspects of marketing deals with the specifications of the actual goods or services, and how it relates to the end-user's needs and wants. Pricing - this refers to the process of setting a price for a product, including discounts. The price need not be monetary - it can simply be what is exchanged for the product or services. Promotion - this includes advertising, sales promotion, publicity, and personal selling, branding and refers to the various methods of promoting the product, brand, or company. Placement (or distribution) - refers to how the product gets to the customer; for example, point of sale placement or retailing. This fourth ‘P’ has also sometimes been called Place, referring to the channel by which a product or services is sold (e.g. online vs. retail), which geographic region or industry, to which segment (young adults, families, business people), etc. People - any person coming into contact with customers can have an impact on overall satisfaction. Whether as part of a supporting service to a product or involved in a total Page 1 of 3
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service, people are particularly important because in the customer's eyes, they are generally inseparable from the total service. They must be appropriately trained, wellmotivated and the right type of person. Process - this is the process (es) involved in providing a service and the behavior of people, which can be crucial to customer satisfaction. Physical Evidence - unlike a product, a service cannot be experienced before it is delivered, which makes it intangible. This, therefore, means that potential customers could perceive greater risk when deciding whether to use a service. To reduce the feeling of risk, thus improving the chance for success, it is often vital to offer potential customers the chance to see what a service would be like. This is done by providing physical evidence, such as case studies, testimonials or demonstrations. Personalization - it is here referred customization of products and services through the use of the Internet. Early examples include Dell on-line and Amazon.com, but this concept is further extended with emerging social media and advanced algorithms. Emerging technologies will continue to push this idea forward. Participation - this is to allow customer to participate in what the brand should stand for; what should be the product directions and even which ads to run. This concept is laying the foundation for disruptive change through democratization of information. Peer-to-Peer - this refers to customer networks and communities where advocacy happens. The historical problem with marketing is that it is ‘interruptive’ in nature in that it is trying to impose a brand on the customer. This is most apparent in TV advertising. These ‘passive customer bases’ will ultimately be replaced by the ‘active customer communities’. Brand engagement happens within those conversations (P2P is now being referred as ‘Social Computing’ and is likely to be the most disruptive force in the future of marketing).
Simple Ways to Improve Your Marketing Plan Create a Simpler Message - Make sure a child can understand what it is that you are offering. Make a More Powerful Promise - Meet an important need and do it better than anyone else. Give Stronger Facts - People want to be fully informed to make a good choice. Offer a More Personal Message - Make sure your message really matters to those you want most to respond to it. Enforce Better Targeting of Prospects - Stop wasting your money and other people’s time. Concentrate on a Faster Response - Do a better job in responding to customers. Develop a More Useful Website - Make it easier for your prospect to request contact. Take Better Care of Key Accounts - What’s the point of chasing new customers if you keep losing the old ones? Focus on increasing value to the person, attention to their needs, influence on their lives and building a relationship based on trust. Have a Greater Passion - Only promote things that you really believe will help others. Be a More Responsible Citizen - Sell as you would like others to sell to your mother.
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Sales Velocity Partners
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Marketing and Sales Alignment Achieving alignment between marketing and sales departments is the largest opportunity for improving business performance today. When marketing and sales teams align around a single revenue cycle, they can create dramatic improvements in marketing ROI, sales productivity, and most importantly top-line growth. Marketing and sales materials must assist in identifying the indicators and the consequences of the customer's problem that your solutions address. You must translate the value of your solutions into terms that are relevant and compelling your prospect. The benefits of alignment are clear. According an Aberdeen Group study, highly aligned organizations achieved an average of 32% year-over-year revenue growth - while their less aligned competitors saw a 7% decrease in revenue. An additional study by Forrester Research, shows that only eight percent of B2B companies say they have tight alignment between sales and marketing. This Means That 92 Percent Of Organizations Have Alignment Problems!
Alignment problem are a business problem because, without alignment a company cannot effectively execute. Sales and marketing alignment begins with the customer. The questions that drive this process are: What are the sources of your value? What are your customer's uses of value (the problems that your customer experiences or will experience in the absence of your sources of value?)
What are the physical symptoms (indicators) of the problems occurring that confirms the potential uses of your value, and validate your sources of value? Where in the customer's buy-cycle are the symptoms experienced? What are the consequences of the customer's experiences ... and what is the financial impact of those consequences? Why does the customer care about these consequences? In light of the above answers, what value assumption will constructively engage the prospect?
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