Marketing. Just about the difficult

One of my main activities is the implementation of CRM systems . I have written many articles on this topic, published a book and continue to develop this direction further. But lately, I began to receive more and more questions on topics related not so much to software systems, but to principles of working with them. Of course, I understand what sales are, I studied, modernized, put into practice many different business processes for sales for various industries.

In practice, I often encounter requests from clients - to evaluate the work of the marketing department, to analyze the site from a marketing point of view, etc. There are also many issues related to increasing sales.. Those. they turn to me not just with questions about how to streamline, standardize and systematize work with clients, but ask questions related essentially to business development.

And here I am faced with the same problem as when working on the implementation of software systems: people do not understand the meaning of terms. Often, even if used. Therefore, I decided to devote a series of articles to the most important concepts related to business. The first article in this series was devoted to the term “ Business ”. And now I want to talk about the most used word in the field of sales - this is marketing.

This term is used by a variety of companies - from very small, the entire staff of which does not exceed 15 people. And everywhere the question of marketing is very serious. Moreover, even top managers often do not quite understand what marketing is, why it is needed and what to do with it.

The most common answers to the question about the meaning of the term:

• This is a set of measures to increase sales, increase the number of customers.
• This is what marketers do. And what they do is very difficult to say.

Those. in most cases, people use the word “marketing” without understanding its meaning at all.

If you do not understand the correct meaning of the term, you will not be able to effectively and properly use the tool that describes this term.

History of the term "marketing"

The word “marketing” together with other business terms came to our country simultaneously with the development of a market economy in the 1990s. Many of you know or even remember that in the USSR the economy was planned. It was a special model that did not need many tools and concepts of the so-called market economy. The transition from one model to another began during the Perestroika period and the subsequent collapse of the USSR. In more detail about why the terms related to business were not needed in a planned economy, as well as the history of their appearance in Russian, I described in the article “ What is business: a conversation on concepts ”.

In English-language sources, namely, from there the term came to us, the story of the emergence of "marketing" is described quite contradictory. So, in the English-speaking Wikipedia, the period of the appearance of this word and its related field of activity is indicated - the beginning of the XIX century. Other sources carry the emergence of marketing in the middle of the XIX and even the beginning of the XX century. This is due to the different meanings that authors put into the concept of “marketing”.

In the Western literature, unfortunately, there is also no single meaning of the term “marketing”. Different authors give definitions that clearly differ not only in form, but also in essence. The situation is similar in Russian sources. In the same Wikipedia in Russian given as many as 7 options for the meaning of the word.

Below I will try to summarize the knowledge that I have gathered from foreign, domestic sources, and also gained in practice in the process of working with clients in order to bring maximum clarity in the use of the term “marketing”. This information will help people who are concerned about the increase in their sales and work with marketing, as well as anyone interested in the issues of survival and business development.

Variants of the term "marketing"

Turn again to Wikipedia. On the Marketing page the following definition of this term is given:

Marketing (from the English. Marketing - literally translated from English means "action in the market", "market activity") is an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, promoting and providing a product or service to customers and managing relationships with them for the benefit of the organization. In a broad sense, the tasks of marketing are to identify and satisfy human and social needs.

The definition is cumbersome and extremely difficult to read. Below on the same page are 6 more different definitions of marketing, taken from different textbooks. They are also complex and somewhat contradictory. All this also adds further confusion. And if the specialists somehow “break through” through all these heavy and complex for perception constructions, then a person who is just starting to study a topic is almost unreal to understand the essence of the question.

I propose the following definition:

Marketing is an effort to motivate a potential consumer to purchase a product.

In this case, the word "product" I mean both tangible goods and values, and any types of services. “Product” is what you need to sell.

Also pay attention to the phrase "potential consumer." The word "potential" is very important here. Marketing differs from sales in that the sale is when the buyer has already come to you, he already wants to buy and a certain request has already been formed from him, and the seller processes this request.

A sale is the processing of a consumer request. And marketing is the motivation of a potential consumer, as a result of which a request is formed.

At the stage, the potential consumer is still not going to buy anything. He may show some interest in the product, but no more. And the efforts are aimed precisely at ensuring that he has a clear request and need for purchase. And then the potential consumer becomes a customer and the sale process begins.

Why is marketing important?

We all are witnessing globalization, the market in many areas can even be called oversaturated. And at the slightest imbalance of a precarious equilibrium, for example, if a strong competitor appears on the market or during the next economic crisis, many companies leave the market. You can call a lot of different circumstances that accompany such failures.

The reason in all these cases is the same - the company cannot sell its goods.

And here is very important work to motivate potential customers to purchase. In the domestic market, most companies operate on the principle of "street kiosk". Those. the buyer accidentally saw the goods he needed in the window and bought them. And if he didn’t see and didn’t notice, then he passed by without buying one.

Here I will not talk about such giants as Coca-Cola or Apple. They are just fine with marketing. I describe the situation in most domestic manufacturing companies. I observed a similar approach with manufacturers of clothing, food, household chemicals. A similar situation is common in companies engaged in intermediary activities (wholesalers and distributors). And now they are forced to think about marketing.

Why it is so important:

• The company must make a profit.
• For profit you need to sell.
• To sell something, you need a buyer.
• Customers rarely come on their own, they need to be motivated.
• To motivate the buyer will require some effort.
• The company's efforts to motivate customers are called marketing.

If the company does not have enough money, it is extremely important to start selling more. And in order to sell more, you need marketing, i.e. actions aimed at motivating buyers.

What should a marketer do

In our country, a significant part of business leaders are people over 40 or 50 years old. And if the company is not working perfectly, for example, sales are falling, the manager often thinks that the company under his leadership is “not modern.” And begins to look for a solution to the problem in finding young and creative personnel.

However, many business leaders are aware of the need for marketing on an intuitive level. As a result, they decide to hire a marketer. But they do not understand what to demand from the marketer and what actions are needed to motivate customers. Here more often such a message is triggered:

“We want to be a modern company. What we lack for this? I need a marketer! ”

And this marketer in their opinion should be a young, creative and creative person. Moreover, most often businessmen do not understand the difference between a marketing specialist and an advertising specialist.

This advertiser can be a creative person, he generates creative ideas and solutions. But even in this profession, creativity is much less than is commonly believed. A marketer in general has nothing to do with creativity. He must have professional knowledge to choose the right marketing strategy, and be the organizer of the process.

And if a creative person is also hired to work with creative people, also a young person (which in itself implies a lack of extensive experience in managing a team), it is not possible to build high-quality marketing.

It is important to know: a marketer is not a creative profession.

As in any field, it’s not enough to hire a marketing specialist to successfully solve problems. You need to understand how it can actually benefit the company, how the marketing work should be structured. Without this, the marketer becomes just another employee who does a variety of things:

• Email newsletters;
• Filling the site;
• Participates in updating the packaging design;
• Works in 1C;
• It helps to make commercial offers, etc.

But all this is unorganized and irregular. There is no general work strategy, there is no general idea in all these actions. Those. A specialist is constantly loaded with some kind of momentary and diverse tasks, which in many cases can be performed perfectly by any sales person or secretary. And the knowledge and skills of a marketer as a specialist remain unclaimed.

As a result, companies have a high turnover of marketers. I saw companies where 2 or 3 people in this position alternated within six months.

Another common problem is that marketers in many cases do not know what they are selling. A person sits in an office, there is no production. The constant workload of diverse current actions leaves no time and desire to examine the product, read the documentation, to gain knowledge of the advantages, disadvantages, features of what the company sells.

At the same time, it is the marketer who becomes the middleman between the company and the copywriters. As a result, the marketer becomes simply a “transmission link” and a “jack of all trades” in a certain field of the company's activity.

The marketer must manage efforts to motivate a potential customer to purchase.

Thus, a marketer should not just do a newsletter or write a post on social networks about holding a certain action, he should:

• think over the presentation of information taking into account the product, price, features of consumers,
• align advertising message with other channels
• notify the newsletter and the sales department itself, etc.

Those. The marketer does not just perform some kind of action as directed by the management, he must manage marketing, work to ensure that actions aimed at increasing sales are part of a common strategy, complement and reinforce each other. Otherwise, it turns out that we see often in reality - chaotic efforts with low efficiency.

What does marketing consist of?

Most likely, many now have the word "brand" flashed in their heads. At least with clients, I often have to start marketing communication with the discussion of the brand, as they place particular emphasis on it.

In fact, you should not start with the brand, but with the product. It is very important to understand that a brand, even the most successful and recognizable, cannot work by itself. Yes, he will temporarily increase interest in the product. And then the product itself should work - its quality, meeting the expectations of customers. So reputation is formed. And if the product is good, the buyer will remember the brand and come next time for your product. And if the product turns out to be bad, no brand will save; rather, the opposite.

It is very important to understand: a person buys a product, not a brand. Even with the purchase of status things, the basis is always the product and its quality. Of course, there is a need for status for a certain part of consumers, and they are ready to pay extra for a status brand. But status is just one of the qualities of a product, and, for consumers, it is far from the first place. For example, if a branded handbag is with a hole from which things will fall out, or a status smartphone will not work normally, no status will help to sell.

The brand may attract the attention of the buyer, because It is part of advertising, which in turn is a component of marketing. But they will buy the product, not the brand. It is very important to understand.

So, let's analyze the main components of marketing.

Product or service

This is what you sell to a customer. From the point of view of marketing, it is necessary to note those properties of a product or service that are important to the buyer.

For example, when buying a car, the consumer is unlikely to be interested in the steel grade of which the body is made. But be sure to be interested in its color and engine power.

If you want to sell a product or service, you need to know exactly the features, characteristics, most importantly, the competitive advantages of what you offer to the buyer. It would seem obvious?

In reality, I have repeatedly come across the fact that sellers and marketers of a vendor company hardly understand what they are selling. They do not know the main characteristics and characteristics of the product, they can not clearly explain the advantages and differences of their products among themselves or in comparison with the proposals of competitors. As a result, the company is not able to present its goods to the buyer.

Here I am not talking about a unique commercial offer (UTP), this technology already applies to advertising. Everything is much easier. The buyer should receive complete and reliable information about the consumer properties of the goods that are important to him as a future consumer.
Think about what your customers pay attention to when choosing your products. And give them answers to important questions for them.

Price

The price of a product or service is the most important parameter in terms of marketing. Many people do not pay attention not to the price of their products, they calculate it on the basis of certain parameters (cost price, percentage of profit, etc.) and that’s all.

In fact, price is a very interesting factor in terms of marketing. For example, let's imagine what it would be if the iPhone cost not 30,000 rubles, but 30,000? And if at all 10,000? On the one hand, an affordable and high-quality smartphone would be actively bought, like many other models. On the other hand, he would have immediately lost his status, and we would never have seen the queue for a new iPhone or the resale of boxes from it on the Internet.

The vector of marketing depends on the price of a product or service: to position an offer as a mass or exclusive. Depending on the price will be very different and the main questions of your customers.

For example, in the mass segment it is important that the phone calls and works as long as possible, and therefore the warranty period will be one of the key issues. At the same time, for exclusive models, the quality of work is considered the “default” parameter. And if you start telling that the model works reliably, it will cause confusion and mistrust. Here, buyers are more interested in additional features and benefits.

Another important point regarding the price. There is such a catch phrase "Product without price is not a product." Until you set the price, the potential buyer will not be able to decide whether to even be interested in the details, to spend time studying the characteristics of the product or the description of the service. For this reason, online stores without price tags next to the goods or with the button "Get a price" most often lose to competitors. And on sites with services, people rarely fill out requests like “Calculate the cost of a project”. But it is worthwhile to indicate at least an approximate cost of work, for example, show finished projects and indicate a price tag next to them, the number of requests for a calculation increases markedly.

All this has long been actively used in the West. There, on pricing, they write entire textbooks, which describe the pricing options with regard to marketing. From there we received price lists of the "9.99" type. The simplest example, everyone understands why they put a similar price. Still, it works. Therefore, always pay special attention to the price.

Consumer

The consumer is the person who will use the product. In fact, all marketing is aimed precisely at the consumer, he is here - a key link. All advertising appeals and appeals are addressed to the consumer. Consumer you make your offer. You need to convince him to make a purchase.

The consumer is interested in the company from the point of view in order to make an adequate and effective offer to it.

For effective marketing, it is important to know your consumer, to understand how and with what you can be interested in, in what style to communicate with him, to what his requests to answer in his sequel. But it is necessary to study the consumer only from this point of view.

Remember that marketing is needed on time, this process is always very limited in time. It is necessary to have time not only to study the consumer, but also to prepare the proposal itself, to bring it to the people. All this also requires time-consuming.

Therefore, the task of studying the consumer is not perceived as an end in itself. You can order surveys, attract mystery shoppers, conduct surveys, buy statistics. Your sellers can also ask any questions to buyers to clarify their portrait of the consumer. But at the same time it is important to comply with the measure, and only those information should be collected that will really help in drawing up an effective proposal. Everything else is a waste of time and money.

And here it is important to understand the difference between the consumer and the person who makes the purchase decision.

In the field of B2C, the buyer and the consumer are almost always the same person. If you buy, for example, chips or chocolate, then you will consume them either you personally, or your children, family, friends. In any case, the choice of goods you make from the point of view of the consumer.

The situation in B2B is the opposite. Here, almost always the decision about the purchase is made by one person, and the other will use the goods. And marketing decisions should take this fact into account.

For example, when ordering an ERP or CRM system implementation, the search for a contractor company is the responsibility of the secretary, the head of the IT department, the financial director, or any other employee at the discretion of the manager. And marketing should be directed to these people. And the system will be used either by the sales department (CRM), or all divisions of the company (ERP).

And here it is very important to understand the difference between the person to whom you want to direct marketing, and the consumer of the product or service.

In practice, B2B companies often wishful thinking. They would like to communicate with the engineer in the process, if they sell the equipment, or with the accountant, if they offer audit services or accounting consulting, etc. And they direct all their efforts and appeals to future users, i.e. specialists.

In reality, in most cases, the choice of potential contractors is made by the secretary or another ordinary employee, i.e. "Girl at the computer." And only then the secretary goes to the management with a ready list of potential contractors, i.e. to the people making the purchase decision. Yes, at this stage, experts are connecting to the issue of decision making. But you still need to get to this list.

And it turns out that the decision on the purchase takes one person, others will use. And the choice of possible sellers is carried out in general by the third person, that secretary. And marketing must take into account both stages of selection - the secretary and the head.

It is especially important to consider this factor in the sale of complex goods and services. The more complicated and incomprehensible your offer is, the lower the probability that you will be able to sell something. And here everything is important - simply and briefly convey the essence of the product or service, indicate the price, possible terms of cooperation. Only in this case you have a chance to move to the desired stage - the discussion of all the nuances with the specialist you need from the buyer.

But even in this area you need to remember that in any case, marketing is not just about the buyer, but about the potential consumer.

The potential consumer is both the buyer and the future consumer of the product. If you are talking only about the buyer, then all your calls will be sent to a one-time sale. At the same time, you risk missing work with the product itself, with its packaging and many other nuances that will help the consumer to become a buyer again. And the use of the term “potential consumer” helps to link all elements of marketing into a common system.

Interaction channel

The interaction channel is the channel through which your marketing will be channeled. Simply put, this is what a potential buyer will see: advertising on the Internet or on television, outdoor advertising and flyers, a stand at an exhibition, etc. The necessary actions and decisions directly depend on the channel and product.

Suppose you sell a complex technological product. In the booklets of the company that are used during the exhibition, you can describe in detail all its characteristics and properties. And when you make a banner on the site will have to restrict a brief slogan.

Standard channel list:

• Social networks;
• Email marketing;
• Printed products;
• The site of the company;
• Television, radio;
• Internet advertising (contextual, banner);
• Implicit marketing.

We’ll dwell on the last concept in more detail. Most of the listed channels are in the field of explicit advertising, i.e. they are aimed at a potential buyer and carry a message, message, call to action.

Implicit marketing includes channels aimed primarily at existing customers. There is no obvious call, it is not needed, because the person has already made a purchase. But there are certain hidden mechanisms to ensure that the buyer came to buy again, shared positive emotions with other people, advised to buy this product.

One of the clearest examples of implicit marketing is packaging. Beautiful, convenient packaging causes positive emotions, people pay special attention to unusual and creative solutions. Now, even on Youtube, there are channels where special attention is paid to packaging: in the video, people unpack the goods and evaluate convenience and other parameters.

It would seem, why do you need marketing when a person has already bought a product! In fact, if in the process the buyer experiences positive emotions, he will definitely want to experience the same feelings again. And because of such efforts, he becomes a potential consumer again from a successful buyer.

Implicit marketing also includes free shipping. This service does not relate to the properties of the product, most likely, the client will already buy the product. But free shipping is a nice plus, positive emotions from the buyer.

Another example of implicit marketing is post-purchase surveys. Now there are a lot of such polls, and most of them, unfortunately, are illiterate, and therefore do not bring any benefit. But there are very elegant solutions when, as a result of the survey, the buyer is left with the feeling that the company is actually thinking about him, and if he comes to buy the next time, his comments will be taken into account. And the survey is conducted for a reason, but because the company cares about customers.

Implicit marketing is the case when the impression of an effort is transferred to the product, and the buyer again wants to make a purchase.

Marketing and industry giants experience

Authors of numerous textbooks and marketing courses love to refer to the experience of giants such as Steve Jobs or Ogilvy. On the one hand, their experience is interesting as a success story, as examples of the ability to find non-standard solutions.

But at the same time, you should not repeat the common mistake: do not try to repeat the actions of the giants in the context of your business without thinking.

Giants - they are therefore giants, because these are large companies that have already taken place, and they are really unique in many ways. However, like any business. And what is advertised as successful marketing decisions from the giants of the industry is in fact the fruit of a long journey and the gigantic work of large teams.

If you are creating a business from scratch or working in a small company, no one knows about you. And here it makes no sense to try to repeat the decisions of the giants. You will find a long way, which all new companies and brands go through. At the same time you will have your own unique features and original solutions, different from the market situation described in the textbooks. That is why you need to build your own unique strategy, including in the field of marketing, and not focus on solutions that have helped other people, often at another time, in another country and under very different market conditions.

Yes, you can make the same packaging as Jobs. But why do you need it if you are selling clothes, not smartphones? Or you can invest in a giant advertising campaign, but why do you need such overwhelming costs if you are a small start-up company that nobody knows about? Marketing, of course, will give a certain effect. But their payback in this case is an extremely controversial issue.

It is possible that your advertisement will be puzzling, because you are trying to promote a new one with the help of methods of increasing the recognition of an already well-known brand. And, maybe, and vice versa, you will be interested in more buyers than you can serve. And the funds necessary for the development, for example, production, will be spent on advertising.

Everything has its time. And therefore you need to focus on your situation and opportunities. And the methods of giants can and should be studied, but they should be applied when your business also goes into the category of giants.

You can talk a lot more about marketing. In this article I tried to reveal the basic concepts. In future publications, I will definitely tell you how a marketing plan is drawn up, what a “Buyer's Path” is, as well as other important features of a marketer's work. I hope that this information will help you and your customers understand the nuances of this important component of the business.