Excellence University Journal

A Note to Student Interested in Marketing Excellence

by John Spence

October 21st, 2007

I recently had a student email me with some questions about how to be an outstanding marketer. Here was my response:

Here are some things off the top of my head:

1. Do you truly understand exactly who your target customer is in great detail? You have to have a very clear and detailed picture of specifically who you are trying to entice. Age, race, attitude, income, hobbies, TV and reading preferences, where do they get their info, which media do they trust, how do they make their buying decisions… everything you can possibly understand.
2. What are the top 2 or 3 logical and emotional reasons for these people to be involved in your organization. You have to answer the question: So What? Or another way marketers put it is you have to be able to explain to them…WIIFM = What’s In It for Me. You need to be able to get in their head and look at the situation from their POV — then deliver an offer that is so incredibly focused and compelling that they jump off the couch and come
   running to be involved.   Along with that — you also have to understand who you are competing against for mind share and share of wallet (and it is not just other similar products and services — Harley Davidson motorcycles are
   the number one competitor to the swimming pool industry… think about it – a Harley and a pool both cost about $15,000!)
3. Typically when you have a small budget and a tightly defined market — you go after the “Key Influencers” who are the upper 1% of the people that set the trends for the rest. Who is everybody listening to? Rather than
   trying to get to 1,000 people — get to the top 10 who are incredibly well connected — and get them to tell 100 friends each — and you have your 1,000. Also — most people are getting sick of marketing and
   advertising — I suggest that the future of marketing is going to rest strongly on “WOM” — word-of-mouth — you do not believe an ad — but you do believe your friends.
4. Lastly — they message needs to be very easy to understand and 100% congruent across all media. You want to send a clear, compelling and concise message — to exactly the right people — over and over again (over a long
   time period) — from multiple sources. That is how you make every marketing dollar count.

Hope that helps!

Article Filed under: I. WATER (Team/Group Excellence)