I’ve been marketing to consumers for 50 years. Success seems to become more illusionary every day. The process has become complex beyond the ability of any mortal to fully grasp, yet it is us that have made it so in the search for some ‘differentiator’.
In reality, it is very simple.
The value chain has evolved to a small number of strategic choices that need to be made. After all, there are only two gorillas and a strongly growing chimp between you, the marketer, and them, the consumer.
It is the complexity of the available tactical choices that consume most of the time, energy, and money.
My advice is to step back and consider the few factors that will make a real difference and save the money on the rest. Recognise the things you can control and control them. Acknowledge the things you cannot control and prepare for both surprises and disappointments.
Weight of distribution.
Supermarkets control the point of consumer purchase. Your task is to generate as much weight of distribution as you can for a given investment. It doesn’t matter how great the ad might be, how many ‘influencers’ you might employ, and how many channels you pay for the messages to be carried, if it’s not on shelf a consumer cannot buy it.
Consider your WOD in two dimensions: depth and breadth, and never compromise breadth for depth. 100% weight of distribution in Sydney only will always be better than 50% in NSW. It is not just the number of potential customers you may reach, but the availability when they are in a store, pushing a trolley, that counts
Consumers do not care.
The consumer is not interested in your beautifully crafted brand strategy, the sales deck you recite to the buyers, or the research that tells you the new pack design will clean up in the market. They simply do not care.
Consumers are just looking for the product that solves the problem, delivers a desired outcome. Yours will be one of many products claiming to deliver value, in which case yours must solve the problem better than any alternative in some way, on the day the consumer is in front of the shelf, contemplating a purchase.
Brand awareness is a red herring.
Having high brand awareness is useless unless it is relevant. Everybody is aware of Coca Cola, but not everybody is in the market for Coca Cola when they are in a supermarket. What is important is that when a consumer is in the market for a particular type of product, yours is the one that comes to mind that is most relevant to the current situation. Academics call it ‘mental availability’. What it really means is that when that illusionary consumer is contemplating buying a tub of margarine, a bottle of hot sauce, a box of washing powder, or a soft drink, your brand is the one that jumps to the front of their mind as the best option.
Focus kills wide frontal.
Focus trumps general every time. Spreading your marketing budget across multiple channels and many types of content might feel good but it is a waste of most of the money. Understanding your customer well enough to focus your resources to generate that vital mental availability in the right context is far more efficient.
It is the difference between the trench warfare of the western front, and the blitzkrieg in the identical locations a generation later.
Social proof.
Word of mouth has always been, and will always be, the most powerful form of marketing. People trust other people, particularly people they know (sometimes knowing works in the opposite direction) much more than they trust any form of paid communication. The conversation over the back fence will convert to a purchase much more often than a glossy ad. It takes longer, it takes patience, and a solid strategy, but it ‘sticks’. Robert Cialdini coined the term Social Proof 45 years ago. It is now more critical to success that it has ever been, living as we do in a world suffering from a tsunami off AI generated slop. genuine social proof is where the marketing gold lies hidden.
Get those five things right, and you will have a good chance of winning. Four out of five, and you are on borrowed time.
