Marketing

Marketing. What is it? To many people, the consumers, watching TV or searching online, it’s annoying. Yet this word is the crux of American consumerism. How did Steve Jobs sell the ipod? MARKETING! But Steve Jobs wasn’t born a marketing guru he used steps.

There are 5 steps to marketing well
Identify the product/service you sell.
Identify the consumer base for this product or service.
Advertise to this consumer base.
Get noticed by a news release.
Establish brand name recognition by advertising frequently and providing good customer service.
Each step can be broken down with a more detailed explanation.
Step 1 insists that you find a service that you sell and make it the best of its class. Just like Steve Jobs made the ipod the best of its class.
Step 2 is an extension of step 1 and allows you to redefine the service/product for the customer base you want. This also allows you to narrow the places you spend money for step 3. There are companies who advertise higher education for adults on children’s television programming.
Step 3 is the hardest to do. Much ink has been spilt over the subject of advertising.
The problem is that many of the so-called professionals are not themselves marketing gurus and write about the fad of the day without much experience. For instance, one book may tell you that advertising with comedy is very effective, while others will tell you that advertising seriously is more effective. And both may be correct and it depends on the product. For instance, Budweiser commercials are funny and yet they may alienate some consumers who find the comedy to be crude, however Budweiser knows that the target consumer base namely young adults between 21 and 30 will likely not be offended by the comedy of the commercial. On the other hand a bank or a real estate company doing a commercial is more likely to get its audiences attention by being brief and humorless. The product you sell largely defines the audience and that in turn defines the style of the ad. It is also important to never underestimate the power of being annoying in fact sometimes an annoying commercial can be as effective as a humorous commercial. This can than be played to your advantage by making fun of the annoying commercial in the next ad.
Step 4 is a direct extension of step 3 and is a free way to get consumer notoriety. The trick is to call up your local newspaper or news station and attract them to interview you or to do a 2 second clip. The hard part is selling your advertising as news.
Step 5 solely depends on your own skills as a company and who you hire.
Next week we’ll review strategies for coming up with a NAME.