Download Marketing Your Products/Services and Promoting Your Organization

Marketing Your Products/Services and
Promoting Your Organization
There is often a great deal of misunderstanding about marketing. People often consider marketing to be
the same as advertising. It's not. Advertising is only one part of marketing. Very simply put, marketing is
the wide range of activities involved in making sure that you're continuing to meet the needs of your
customers and getting value in return.
Market analysis includes finding out what groups of customers (or markets) exist, what their needs are,
what groups of customers you prefer to serve (target markets), what products or services you might
develop to meet their needs, how the customers prefer to use the products and services, what your
competitors are doing, what pricing you should use and how you should distribute products and services
to customers. Results of this marketing analysis indicates the position, or market "niche", for the
organization to work from -- and to be seen as having. Marketing also includes ongoing promotions,
which can include advertising, public relations, sales and customer service. Various methods of market
research are used to find out information about markets, target markets and their needs, competitors,
market trends, customer satisfaction with products and services, etc.
Rules of Marketing: Old Vs. New
(The following article also addresses public relations -- the opinions in the article apply to both marketing and public relations. Note that many people would assert
that public relations is a form of outbound marketing.)
What is Marketing? What is PR?
You’ve likely heard it before – in the digital world, “The lines have blurred between Marketing and PR.”
What does that mean? How have the lines blurred? In order to answer these questions, let’s take a look
at the OLD versus the NEW rules of Marketing, as proposed by David Meerman Scott in his bestselling
book, The New Rules of Marketing and PR.
The OLD Rules of Marketing
The message was delivered ONE-WAY, and CREATIVITY was the secret sauce that commanded the
audience’s attention. Among the fundamental concepts of the OLD marketing paradigm:
Advertising was the core tool
The advertising message was generally crafted to appeal to the masses
Advertising INTERRUPTED the audience with a one-way message
Advertising engaged campaigns for a defined time period
Creators focused on creativity – and award-winning campaigns
Advertising and PR were different specialties, run by different people
The OLD Rules of PR
The ultimate goal: Spin a press release to capture reporters’ attention, then get a clip of the story, to
show that the message was viewed by the audience.
Media comprised the toolbox, in order to get the message out
A press release was the core tool
Only significant news commanded the attention of the media
It was all in “the spin” (or HYPE!)
Quotes from third parties were an important element of a press release
Press releases were meaningless unless a reporter decided that it was worthy of a story
The NEW Rules of Marketing and PR
Since the internet is now one huge publisher, ANYONE can learn how to create compelling messages and
publish them. Getting found online is the science and art. A few of the new rules include:
People don’t want “spin” – they want authenticity
People don’t want to be interrupted anymore (it’s now called SPAM)
People don’t want to be ‘told’ (push marketing), they want to be heard
People want VALUE (content), which develops relationship and trust
Marketing and PR can reach niche audiences online in a wider variety of ways
Content is KING, and stays online, with no end to the campaign
The New TOOLS of Marketing and PR
It’s no longer TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, direct mail, etc. Meaningful, valuable CONTENT is the
vehicle that captures audiences’ attention. It is now found on:
Websites
Blogs
Microblogs (Tweets)
Social Media platforms (Facebook.com, Myspace.com, etc)
Article Directories
Videos
Podcasts
Etc, etc etc!
Making the Marketing Strategy Happen!
Implementing a marketing strategy is a multi-faceted activity. A good marketing strategy is driven by a
clear, simple positioning statement. This makes it clear to your employees and market, where the
company is superior to the competition. The marketing strategy encompasses the product or service
offering, pricing, promotion and distribution – or delivery of the product or service to your customers.
So, the marketing strategy is all-encompassing. It drives product features, time from order to delivery,
logistics, research and development, customer services — in short, it drives what is key for all facets of
the business.
Consequently, implementing a marketing strategy involves so much more than marketing. It involves the
whole company.
How you implement the marketing strategy depends who you are in the organization. Are you the
president or the marketing director? If the organization has developed a marketing strategy, both need
to be aligned with the strategy, on-board and enthusiastic.
The implementation of the marketing strategy can begin with the development of the marketing
strategy. The organization can be involved or informed of the status of the development of the strategy.
The input of operations, regulatory and sales can be part of the information that is used to develop the
strategy.
Or the strategy can be developed by the management team, and rolled out to the company once it is
completed. The extent, to which each approach works, depends a lot on the issues involved with the
strategy development, the culture of the company, and the buy-in to the plan by the company as a
whole.
If, for example, operations were asked for an opinion, it is very important to close the loop, and let
operations know what happened to the input. How it was used in developing the plan and, if possible,
how the input affected the final strategy that was developed.
If the plan is being rolled out with no input, then it is critical for the department heads to consider the
expected response from their teams, and to ensure the potential issues will be addressed. If unexpected
issues are raised, it is critical to research these issues and respond to them. However, the key is to
effectively demonstrate how the plan is in the interest of each department, in particular, the growth of
the company. Information that provides confidence in this result is essential to provide, and an inclusive,
enthusiastic, confident tenor of the meeting is important.
However, it is much more than one roll out meeting, or several roll out meetings. Implementation
includes the informal discussions in the hall, during chance encounters, in regular meetings. People will
absorb the information, and come up with excellent questions that need to be taken into account.
There is, of course, the formal implementation of the strategy as well. It will translate into objectives for
performance evaluations, possibly organization shifts and changes.
As the company moves through the changes, focus on gaining some small wins first. This increases
confidence in the new strategy and increases momentum. Keep it forefront in the company, stay
positive and flexible.