Why don't businesses 'get' marketing?

[Cynic]

Yes......they typed 'VoIP' into google and found us or heard from their mate in the pub or read an article that a journalist had written somewhere because he thought we were doing something interesting.

Of course, if your basic product or service is generic and average, you're going to have to spend a disproportionate amount of your money trying to persuade people that it's worth buying.

I use the pub/restaurant analogy a lot. There's literally thousands of pubs and restaurants in the city I live; all of them easily accessible to me. But I go to maybe a dozen and they're all very popular. The reason is that they're good or great and the rest aren't. Only a tiny fraction of companies are great - if you get to be even good you stand out and people will use you.

I'm not sure I understand what's going on here. Your own site has a pagerank 4, over 2000 backlinks and is fully optimized...How could this happen by accident ?....Some one clearly spent money/effort in search engine optimization which is still a form marketing


That's true but if the business is smart enough to track their numbers and also track where their best customers come from they'll be in a position to kill dormant competitors


Using the same restaurant analogy ...I hope you realize the most successful restaurant in the world is McDonalds and

 

[cjd]

I'm not sure I understand what's going on here. Your own site has a pagerank 4, over 2000 backlinks and is fully optimized...How could this happen by accident ?....Some one clearly spent money/effort in search engine optimization which is still a form marketing

And that's why I said this:

"......they typed 'VoIP' into google and found us"

and this:

"All businesses 'do' marketing whether they 'get' it or not. Marketing just means showing you business to the world."

We do our own SEO and know that it's vital and know that it's marketing - but we also know that unless the product and service is also good, it's wasted.

But SEO only gets us a small part of our new business, the majority is word of mouth recommendation and PR resulting from being pretty good at what we do.

My point is not that marketing is not important, it's vital; my point is that everything a company does is marketing - not just what marketers call marketing. The most important thing to get right is what you sell.

I knew the Product Manager for Pot Noodles when it first launched. It had a multimillion pounds cross media campaign. When it launched everybody congratulated themselves because it was a huge success, product flew off the shelves but a month later sales plummeted. They did it all again and the same happened - people weren't re-buying the product. They tried it once, hated it because, as he said, "it tasted cr@p". They had to re-think the product.

Using the same restaurant analogy ...I hope you realize the most successful restaurant in the world is McDonalds

Right, so as a small business, how would you design a marketing campaign to succeed against McDs? Answer - you can't.

What I'd do is try to make the best burger in the world and sell it in the best place I could afford with helpful and smiling staff at a sensible price - then I'd wait for people to tell other people how good we are. It takes patience and hard work and it isn't as glamorous as creating a multi-media marketing campaign, but it works and it's sustainable.
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[Force Digital]

Marketing is at the heart of everything a successful business does. The sign over the shop door, business cards, special offers, talking to customers, its all marketing. Specific activity attributed to a marketing plan is what confuses many business owners. Also, the inability of many marketers to measure the success of marketing activity contributes to the negative perceptions it often receives.

 

[Cynic]

And that's why I said this:

"......they typed 'VoIP' into google and found us"

and this:

"All businesses 'do' marketing whether they 'get' it or not. Marketing just means showing you business to the world."

We do our own SEO and know that it's vital and know that it's marketing - but we also know that unless the product and service is also good, it's wasted.

But SEO only gets us a small part of our new business, the majority is word of mouth recommendation and PR resulting from being pretty good at what we do.

My point is not that marketing is not important, it's vital; my point is that everything a company does is marketing - not just what marketers call marketing. The most important thing to get right is what you sell.

I knew the Product Manager for Pot Noodles when it first launched. It had a multimillion pounds cross media campaign. When it launched everybody congratulated themselves because it was a huge success, product flew off the shelves but a month later sales plummeted. They did it all again and the same happened - people weren't re-buying the product. They tried it once, hated it because, as he said, "it tasted cr@p". They had to re-think the product.


Right, so as a small business, how would you design a marketing campaign to succeed against McDs? Answer - you can't.

What I'd do is try to make the best burger in the world and sell it in the best place I could afford with helpful and smiling staff at a sensible price - then I'd wait for people to tell other people how good we are. It takes patience and hard work and it isn't as glamorous as creating a multi-media marketing campaign, but it works and it's sustainable.
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Apples to oranges comparison here really. B2B vs B2C. One off purchase consumer product vs a subscription based service. Perhaps i'm struggling to distinguish 'vital' from 'important' ? Don't get me wrong I'm all for product development and stellar servicing but I won't discredit the importance of marketing. (Who is to say your SEO efforts didn't yield indirect peer recommendations?)


Restaurants have pretty high over heads, I'm not sure 'waiting to be discovered' is a good long term strategy in that industry... Having creative marketing strategies (joint ventures/coupons/ list building/events) along with good food and servicing is one sure fire way to keep your establishment packed with hungry customers while leaving your dormant competition to wait over scraps

 

[cjd]

Restaurants have pretty high over heads, I'm not sure 'waiting to be discovered' is a good long term strategy in that industry... Having creative marketing strategies (joint ventures/coupons/ list building/events) along with good food and servicing is one sure fire way to keep your establishment packed with hungry customers while leaving your dormant competition to wait over scraps

Waiting to be discovered is not the long term strategy. Selling the best burgers in town is the long term strategy. If you do that, you don't need all that marketing crap with coupons and events that cost money and lower your margins.

I went to Deal, Kent last month and had one of the best meals in my life, great service, great prices. Cold, wet, tuesday night in February - the place was full. No promotions no hoohah, just blood good food well presented. Walking back to our hotel, we passed half a dozen empty restaurants.

How did we find this gem? - we looked at the recommendations on Trip Advisor. If you're in Deal I suggest you look it up.

http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restau...1_Beach_Street-Deal_Kent_England.html#REVIEWS

The best fish and chip shop in our town is down a side street that nobody in their right mind would go looking for food in. It's been there for 50 years; you don't see it advertising - but pretty much everybody in town knows it.

If you need repeat business, you *must* get your product right first. Reputation is becoming the most important thing a company has. If you don't look after your product properly you'll have to spend a lot of money getting new customers the hard way - and then dealing with their dissatisfaction afterwards.

 

[Cynic]

Waiting to be discovered is not the long term strategy. Selling the best burgers in town is the long term strategy. If you do that, you don't need all that marketing crap with coupons and events that cost money and lower your margins.

I went to Deal, Kent last month and had one of the best meals in my life, great service, great prices. Cold, wet, tuesday night in February - the place was full. No promotions no hoohah, just blood good food well presented. Walking back to our hotel, we passed half a dozen empty restaurants.

How did we find this gem? - we looked at the recommendations on Trip Advisor. If you're in Deal I suggest you look it up.

http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restau...1_Beach_Street-Deal_Kent_England.html#REVIEWS

The best fish and chip shop in our town is down a side street that nobody in their right mind would go looking for food in. It's been there for 50 years; you don't see it advertising - but pretty much everybody in town knows it.

If you need repeat business, you *must* get your product right first. Reputation is becoming the most important thing a company has. If you don't look after your product properly you'll have to spend a lot of money getting new customers the hard way - and then dealing with their dissatisfaction afterwards.

It's not crap if the coupons are redeemed from non competing businesses own customers through joint ventures which in itself is a form of peer recommendation.... Also hosting an event can be very profitable due to the drinks ...even more so if you host corporate events or business luncheons where the margins are even bigger with even bigger tips.

Marketing and having a good product aren't mutually exclusive though so I fail to see how acquiring new clients/customers can be seen as something "that cost money and lowers your margins." when you gain new customers who will most likely return/refer your company in the future. I look at business from a perspective of massive growth


Oh, thank you for the tip. (peer recommendation at work )


I agree reputation management is very important. Testimonials are part of marketing as well

 

[cjd]

Marketing and having a good product aren't mutually exclusive though

Well absolutely. I'm not at all saying that marketing is not important - in fact I've said that it's vital. The point I'm making is that marketing isn't purely what most marketing people do for a living - branding, PR lunches and media buying. It start and almost finishes with the product or service, everything spins off that.

The UK is still stuffed full of large brands whose customer services are run by operation's directors as cost centres - so it finishes up in India and the Philippines and the consequences of those decisions on their brand and reputation we all know.

I fail to see how acquiring new clients/customers can be seen as something "that cost money and lowers your margins." when you gain new customers who will most likely return/refer your company in the future.

If you offer a discount on your product as a matter of routine - which I'm seeing happening all the time now - you obviously lower your gross margins. Printing, advertising and distributing money off coupons and building them into your POS is a cost that is charged against your net profit.

You *may* get more business and it *may* compensate for the lower margins, but what you've done is lowered the price of your product and started a price war.

How much better would it have been to make a product at a fair price that people think is best in class and will pay the going rate for?

I agree reputation management is very important. Testimonials are part of marketing as well

Correct, that's what happens when you have a great product - your customers market it for you.

 

[altwebdesign]

My business was at one stage doing waaaaaay better as it was before i added a "marketing" element to it.

I had no plan, no target market or anything and did quite well just doing my own thing with no real structure.

Once I added marketing into the picture it distracted me so much and actually temporarily hurt me than anything else- distratced me from so many things reading blogs and books etc and finding copywritiers and wasting money on "marketing experts"

Now i just stick to the fundamentals and do GREAT!

 

[Cynic]

Well absolutely. I'm not at all saying that marketing is not important - in fact I've said that it's vital. The point I'm making is that marketing isn't purely what most marketing people do for a living - branding, PR lunches and media buying. It start and almost finishes with the product or service, everything spins off that.

The UK is still stuffed full of large brands whose customer services are run by operation's directors as cost centres - so it finishes up in India and the Philippines and the consequences of those decisions on their brand and reputation we all know.

I think what you are referring to here is institutional marketing/brand advertising which is more focused on winning creative awards/pleasing shareholders & the board of directors rather than boosting revenue...these types of agencies don't get it at all...

Big brands have shareholders and investors to satisfy ... This can exert certain pressures especially on costs...I can see why they do it and I don't totally agree however as a consumer I already expect abysmal customer service . It's not a huge priority for me as long they are competent, I could care less where they are from

If you offer a discount on your product as a matter of routine - which I'm seeing happening all the time now - you obviously lower your gross margins. Printing, advertising and distributing money off coupons and building them into your POS is a cost that is charged against your net profit.

You *may* get more business and it *may* compensate for the lower margins, but what you've done is lowered the price of your product and started a price war.

How much better would it have been to make a product at a fair price that people think is best in class and will pay the going rate for?

A coupon doesn't necessarily mean a discount...I'm also assuming the business owners knows his cost per head so even if a discount is offered it's possible to recoup through volume/drinks. You can take this another step and build a list of customers you can readily alert on a slow night...or better yet sell the leftover food at a steep discount...

I see you completely dismissed these uber profitable corporate luncheons

Correct, that's what happens when you have a great product - your customers market it for you.

I agree even if I have to get said customers through marketing

 

[NathanielD]

Now days marketing have become a major concern to promote and increase our business. Certain strategies needs to be developed to market product and services because various options are available for marketing. Social networking sites are becoming popular ways to optimize website ranking. Google adwords can be used once we find increase in website traffic.

 

[altwebdesign]

Im not to keen on social media... I think a large number of businesses have gone to social media and are to some extent neglecting the older tried and tested methods simply because social media is "the latest craze"

 

[Young Recruit]

Im not to keen on social media... I think a large number of businesses have gone to social media and are to some extent neglecting the older tried and tested methods simply because social media is "the latest craze"

Social media is not a fad it's a seismic shift in the way people on this planet communicate with each other.

Many people don't know how to use social media. Any media platform that is improperly or inappropriately used will fail to deliver.

JA

 

[Cynic]

Im not to keen on social media... I think a large number of businesses have gone to social media and are to some extent neglecting the older tried and tested methods simply because social media is "the latest craze"

How can a web designer be saying this ? :| It has it's purpose but that purpose is not for small to medium sized business owners.