Good marketing is not an accident it is the mix of both art and science, logic and intuition, strategy and execution.
No matter whether you are starting a new startup or own a business. Sales is essential and sales is religion, it’s the blood of your venture. Without it companies fail miserably or struggle to survive in a fast pacing economic world. We all understand this very well, everything sucks without sales.
But what makes sales suck?Have you ever wondered Why certain businesses are not able to sell while others leave their mark upon the rest?What lessons can we learn from them? How can you build a loyal customer base when your alternative is just a search away?
Before we move forward I want to remind you of the sweetest definition of marketing which you’ll never forget and the aim of marketing.
- Marketing : Meeting needs profitably.
- Aim of marketing : Understanding your customer so well that product or service sells itself.
Keeping all this in mind, think of the needs of your customer. Imagine as if you are a restaurant owner where every other restaurant is offering similar kind of offerings, You think what is the need of your customer (something to satisfy their hunger) but what they want (something tasty, not harmful to body – healthy or comparatively healthy, budget friendly, made with fresh ingredients or at least well stored in a hygienic manner).
If you understand the above example well then no consumer needs just food from you, that they can get from anywhere. There are hell lots of ads offering ‘one plus one’, ‘free delivery‘, ‘coupons’ and what not and if you do the same nothing can make you stand out of this mundane crowd, you will be fighting a price and quantity competition with every other alternative of you until the point you start addressing their wants to create the significant demand for your food.
Before we move forward here’s what demand means : Wanting a product or service or something backed by the ability to pay for it.
To stand out of the crowd you got to take a stand for your customers, you got to care for them, you got to sell what they want, not what you want to sell them. This is the best way to meet the needs profitably. Once you do that you just have to tell them and they got you, here’s how you create a loyal customer base who share their experiences online without you paying for it or spending a lot of money on ads and remember that this is the beginning of it.
No matter how good you are, always monitor the behavior of your customers carefully along with competitors to stay relevant with the evolving needs and wants of your customer which are affected by socio-cultural environment, economic changes, technological development etc. We have even seen the repercussions of not paying close attention to the needs of our customers.
Here are some examples which we have witnessed: Nokia couldn’t adapt to android on time instead they launched windows which was even more complicated for a short screen device and with lack of app developers community, Blackberry sticked to its keyboard as they assumed people need it, Kodak (once a industry leader) didn’t switch from the reel based camera to the digital one, MySpace Orkut Yahoo all were left behind by the companies started after them as they couldn’t actually monitor how people are evolving with time and what more can be done.
Running a business is a game of hunger, hunger for continuous improvement, no matter how small you are or how big you are, it requires understanding and close observation and courage to stand for your customers to create things that solve their problem satisfying (or delighting) their need and wants resulting in increasing demand.
Thanks for your valuable time
