Keep your Marketing Simple

The best Marketing is the simplest.  It might take hours, weeks, months or years to get right.  However, the most simple marketing is also the most effective.

What did Drucker Say?

Peter Drucker (born 1909 and died 2005) is a so well respected for his contribution to the philosophical and practical foundations for the modern-day business. Anyone that studied marketing in university will be familiar with his work.

So, what did he say?  “The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service sells itself.” It is quite simple, but is also effective.

Once your know and understand your customer, the rest will fall into place.

Research

With this in mind, the best marketing involves thorough market research that pinpoints the customer’s problem.  And the best marketing of all then highlights the solution that your product or service provides to solve this problem.  Solving your customer’s problem will do the selling for you.

When is the last time that you did market research?  If the answer is that you’re not constantly doing market research then the market might just pass you by.  You need to stay close to your customer to get that all important feedback. 

How do you Research?

Market research to find that pain point comes in all sorts of formats.  The best is to simply listen to your customers and ask them questions which will provide you honest feedback.  For some businesses this might not be possible, so formal market research methods like in-depth interviews or focus groups might need to be applied, for example.

When you have discovered what the customer problem and pain points are, what do you do? You try to shout off the rooftops and tell your customers how you are going to solve their problems!

What do you do with the Market Research?

You should know from your market research what the problem is, who has the problem and how you can solve it.  From this, you might have some more information on your target customer.  You may need to create some target customer profiles, otherwise known as personae in the marketing industry. 

Then what?

Once you pinpoint their likes and dislikes, behaviours, motivations, influencers and buyer behaviours, you can then understand how and where to invest your marketing budget.

For example, you might be selling a beauty or haircare product.  You understand that your target customer is on Instagram. Influencers might play a big part in influencing the decision to try your product.  It is a long shot, but you could send a free sample to some chosen influencers and invite them to review your product on Instagram.  It’s worked for others!  Look at the Kardashian’s raving about the Irish Fairy Door Company and what it has done for their sales. 

Marketing is simple when you know how! 

Lush Marketing  specialise in Marketing Strategy, Training and Outsourcing. We’d love to help you if you’re struggling with any of this for your business.  Contact Jill Lush, Thought Leader in Digital and Strategic Marketing to find out more – www.lushmarketing.ie/contact