The old chestnut Keep it Simple Stupid was never more appropriate.
As confidence and with it activity collapses around us, simplicity is becoming ever more valuable.
Simplicity is, however, anything but simple. Simplicity takes time , effort, and a sufficiently clear understanding of the matter, that its essence can be communicated clearly in a minimum of words.
As Oscar Wilde put it “I wrote you a long letter because I did not have time to write a short one”
Marketing is not just the spending of money on some sort of media, it involves the development of the businesses “face” to customers, the development and management of the whole experience of interacting with the brand, and the organisation, or in the case of non customers, the promise of what the experience will be like.
Therefore the engineers, accountants, truck drivers, laboratory assistants, and the security guard, as well as the CEO, and sales and marketing personnel, all have a marketing job to do.
Few CEO’s would consider that marketing awareness should be a job requirement of many past the sales and marketing personnel, but success comes to organisations that are focused on their customers, in everything they do.
Marketing needs to be part of your commercial DNA
Following the previous blog entry, “chief cook & bottle washer” and a phone call from a user prompted by it, I have been thinking about the value of advice, compared to the time it takes to provide it.
Many SME owners are used to hiring extra labor they need on an hourly as needs basis, say $800/week, and that colors their response when a marketing advisor charges $1000 for what appears to be a couple of hours work. (For many, “work” is often related to the number of things done physically, so sitting in a comfy chair, “thinking” hardly rates)
What they miss is the 30 years of experience it took to accumulate the knowledge to be able to sift the alternatives, offer the advice.
This is particularly the case with marketing and strategic advice. People are used to paying lots to accountants, because they recognise the need, and the value, not so with marketing, which is usually more difficult, as there is rarely a clear right answer, just a range of possible courses of action.
A $1000 for 30 years experience applied to a problem seems to be a good deal.
Retailers make this mistake all the time, simply because they now have so much information from the scan data about what is bought, down to when, and with what else it is bought, that they confuse this “what was bought” data with the more important why it was bought.
I should comment about the Federal budget handed down on Tuesday night, it is expected, so here goes, on behalf of the small businesses I work with.
The bank is still chasing to reduce the overdraft.
Sales are still hard to get, and getting harder, and margins are being squeezed.
Creditors want their money quicker, and debtors are stretching, cash is very tight, refer to No. 1.
So what if I can get a better tax deal on capital investment decisions I make, I still need the cash to be able to make the purchase. Refer to No.1.
I also need cash to be able to meet the payroll and associated oibligations, including filling in all the b…… forms, from all the “shiny-pants” around the place who deliver me “services” of varying quality and availability. Refer to No.1.
My employees are getting pretty twitchy, and confused. Twitchy with me, because they see that things are tough, and they are concerned, for themselves, and me, and confused because it is the toughest budget in 50 years, but they just got $900 in their bank account, and the are unsure about how it is tough, so they are looking for the time-bombs.
Lets just survive this month, work on next month, then maybe we can worry about the spin if we are still here, not down the CES. As for the long term structural adjustment, etc,etc that was sprouted on Tuesday, it is undoubtably necessary, assuming there is someone left to pay the taxes, but someone should do some restructuring now, it is needed, and I think I know where to start.
Another day, another 1/2 dollar.
Category Management is an FMCG term being bandied around so much that is coming to mean nothing in particular, because it is so widely used.
In its genesis, it was an expression used to describe the manner in which retailers managed their limited shelf space and range in such a manner to maximise sales and margins while best meeting their particular customers needs.
However, it has since evolved into another tool in the retailer arsenal to extract “rent” for shelf space from manufacturers, which often has little to do with meeting customers needs. This focus has left suppliers, particularly those to FMCG retailers, building a management and marketing infrastructure that focuses on the demands of the retailers, often to the detriment of their consumers. The rise of housebrands is evidence of the abrogation of FMCG suppliers around the world from the task of innovating to engage consumers, and putting resources into paying retail rent.
In many countries the power of the mass retailers is daunting, but they should not absolutely dictate, after all they are essentially sales orgainsations, not marketing ones, they rely on their suppliers for the bulk of their marketing, and have little interest in developing market and consumer behavioral intelligence .
Focus first on what your consumers need, both today and as their needs evolve, and the rest will follow.