IRL v. In Theory: I give a marketing lecture!
Hi!
I had a chance to visit Tom Elmer’s branding class this week.
Tom wanted me to talk with his students about things that happen in the real world and how they compare to what happens in theory.
I was happy to do it!
We had a good conversation and it was a lot of fun.
I turned my talk into a Top 10 list.
Just like David Letterman.
Here we go:
10. Strategy has become a useless word:
Everything is a “strategy” now.
Gen Z strategy.
Facebook strategy.
Go to market strategy.
It is nonsense and it steals the real power from strategy.
Strategy is a set of connected decisions that has to lead to action.
9. You’ll fight with your sales team…a lot.
Somewhere along the line, sales took a superior position to marketing.
Why?
I’ll lay much blame at the feet of “last click attribution”.
Peter Drucker said that sales and marketing were enemies. He also said that marketing’s job was to make sales unnecessary.
I could go into what I think Peter Drucker meant, but I’ll keep it simple today.
Sales leading marketing around does a few things that hurt your business:
Gives you bad feedback from the market because it is always about the price being too high.
Always wants more features.
Always wants more promotion.
My rule of thumb is that marketing creates demand, sales harvests the demand that marketing has grown.
8. Marketing will get shoved into the corner:
Some of the things I’ve heard about marketing over the years:
The coloring in department
Fun at happy hour
The last one is certainly true if I’m with you, but marketing’s job is to drive profits.
The fact that marketing has lost that place in many businesses is a shame because branding is what creates all of these nice profits y’all are looking for.
7. Data gets all the attention:
Data is reactive.
Research is proactive.
Roger L. Martin says that if you put too much faith in data when making a decision, you are making a bet that the future will look exactly like the past.
Not a great bet.
6. Non-customers…c’mon man.
You have to pay attention to your non-customers.
They are a larger part of the market than your customers.
You can learn a lot by finding out what they want, need, and value.
Too often, they are ignored in the pursuit of squeezing every cent out of your current customer base.
5. Discounts are for dummies:
I first said this in 2015.
It has never been truer.
Discounts do a lot of bad stuff:
Destroy your brand equity.
Undermine your brand promises.
Kill your profits.
I can go on.
I’m a bit of a discount absolutist.
There are times when you might want to discount or get into a price war. The problem is that so many people discount as a reflex.
That has to stop.
4. Product launches can make or break you:
Think of a blockbuster movie.
The advertising for the movie starts 60-90 days before the release date and builds until you are overwhelmed with promotions for the movie.
Remember the Barbie movie last year?
This is the same idea you need to have when you are about to launch a product.
You want to have a path laid out for your product from the day you start building until launch.
A rule of thumb, 80% of your investment should happen in the pre-launch and launch phases. 20% once the product is out in the world.
Too many people have it backward.
Even if you have 30 days, do something every day to build the tension and excitement.
3. Your value proposition can make you look like a genius:
Why?
Because so many products and services are just “me too” crap.
“I’m just like the competition, but cheaper.”
“I’m just like them, but faster.”
“Oh…I’m faster and cheaper.”
2. You will have to fight for your brand at every turn:
I told Tom’s class about the IPA’s study of brand building and the work of Binet and Field.
The gist of the study:
You need to invest in your brand and in short term sales activation.
The mix depends on several variables, but if you want to a loose rule: 60/40.
60% on branding
40% on sales
Most businesses are investing 10% max in their branding.
1. Nobody cares:
The ultimate rule of marketing.
No one cares about your marketing.
You are fighting an uphill battle from the start.
You care a lot.
Everyone outside of the business could care less.
By the way, Tom shared the recording with me…so I can now share it with you.
Tell me what you think.
Do any of these ideas strike you as out of line? Am I on to something?
Just hit reply and tell me.
Dave
PS. You’ve made it this far!
Thank you!
NOW…do me a favor and share this with one colleague that would benefit from these 10 ideas, or, even just one of them.
BTW, keep an eye on this space because I have a few new things in the works that I’m going to start sharing.