In my 25 year career in marketing and consulting, one of the most common problems I seen made by marketing professionals which results in a lot of wasted time and money, is lack of clarity on what specific marketing problem is trying to be solved. Let’s start by defining what I mean by “marketing problem”?
A marketing problem is defined as a specific area of weakness or uncertainty in the chain of transactions and communications between the seller, and ultimately, the buyer. Huh? Let me explain. As the seller, you have a product you want the buyers in the market to purchase. The buyers are not usually lined up at your door to buy it on day 1, in fact they may not even know it exists. The chain of communications and transactions which result in a successful transaction (purchase) is the marketing or sales process, sometimes called the go-to-market process. Any weak or broken link in that chain can stop the sales process cold. The job of the marketer is to fully understand the entire chain and make sure that he or she is doing everything they can to strengthen each of the links to prevent any breaks along the way.
Let me give you an example of a poorly defined marketing problem, then a good example.
Bad problem statement: “We need to create awareness for our new product”. This is a weak problem statement because it leaves open 1) who are we making aware?, 2) how many do we need to make aware and is it cost effective to do so? 3) What do we want them to do when they see our awareness campaign?, 4) is simple awareness of your product really enough to stimulate a sale? and 5) who else is involved in the purchase process?, to name just a few little nagging questions. Nothing about this problem statement can be measured, so we are really shooting in the dark here. Only dumb luck will save us, which we as marketers usually claim as divine insight over cocktails when all the smoke clears. I can say this because I have been guilty.
Good problem statement: “We need to drive 10,000 potential customers within our target segment to our website where they will register and provide our sales force with 250 quality leads for follow-up”. This problem statement is actionable because we can measure each element of the problem statement: 1) How many (10,000 visitors and 250 leads), 2) who (our defined target customer), 3) what we want them to do (go to the website and register) and 4) generate 250 quality sales leads for follow-up by our sales force. This challenge still requires a lot of creativity, and there is room for many different ways to accomplish it, but at least the resources will be concentrated on the right problem, and not diluted by a vague meaningless statement about “creating awareness”.
Does this guarantee success? Of course not. But at the end of the day, when the results are tallied, we will have a very clear idea of what parts of our campaign worked and what parts did not. And more importantly we would have concentrated our precious resources across a relatively narrow marketing front (drive people to our website), which greatly increases our probability of success.
So, to increase your chances of success in the marketplace, clearly define measurable, actionable marketing problem statements before you spend a dime. Save your talent for divine insight for Wall Street.
Tags: common marketing mistakes, marketing mistakes, marketing tips, marketing tricks, online marketing ideas