Marketing from the mouth of a Marketeer

Marketing, Marketing Types, Marketing In a Nutshell, Dew Drops, Ravichander Rao

This post is about marketing, as per a practitioner who is in this field.

There are different categories of marketing - product marketing, service marketing, B2B marketing, B2C marketing, digital marketing, content marketing, etc. Fundamentally, they are all the same - Marketing. They have been segmented into different categories so that others can relate to the area where marketing is targeted. Of course, a generalist gets paid less in the market, so to differentiate oneself from the other marketeers, so the labels.

Now the basics - the purpose of marketing is to create excitement around a new, increase adoption and penetration of the existing, and plan the phase out of the older the product and services. While marketing improves the differentiation, consequently the gross margins, the sales is about generating the revenue by trading, consequently preserving the gross margin. That's why these two functions are often talked about in the same breadth. Now, any service that cannot be productized and combined into an offering cannot be sold in the market. So, anything that needs to be sold should have a boundary of its own that defines what to expect out it. For instance, teaching is a service. No one will be able to avail teaching as a service unless it has been productized by placing a boundary - what subject, for long, where, etc. Defining a boundary makes its a product that one can trade.

There is always a consumer for every product that you can conceive. The profitablity of the product decides whether it will exist in the long run or not. The profitability is dependent on the ability of the marketeer to create an excitement around the product that stirs up the demand for the product. The demand indicates the whether your pitch on the value - cost vs. benefit that the product delivers is desired by the purchaser or not. A product is as much dependent on the marketeer for its is success, as much as a marketeer is dependent on the product for his own success. Hence, the marketeer owns the customer surveys to decide roadmap to create the product pipeline that meets the current demands and positioned to meet the near future demands. If a product has a demand, there will always be a competition in a matter of short time. The competition tends to reduce the exclusivity around the product. The more the exclusivity is eroded, the more the product becomes a common thing or a commodity. The role of the marketeer is to maintain the exclusivity or the differentiation of his product vs. the competing products. This is achieved by product enhancements in direct competition or target segment refinement in an direct competition to create a niche application for the product and make the competition less relevant in that segment.

If the product has already moved towards the becoming a commodity, the marketeer will work on creating a differentiation through branding. Branding is perceived image enhancement of the consumer through association with the product. For instance, there are so many beauty products available, most of them are just alike (as long as they are not made from the skin allergy causing substances). They compete with each other in the small retail space. In a blindfold test, you would hardly be able to recognize which product belongs to whom.  In such scenarios, the marketeers work on building a brand around the product that sends out a message of exclusivity when you consume that product. The intention of the building a brand is to be able to charge premium for a product. So, to make the product attractive, it is always associated with the something that sends the message that it is consumed by the high end or exclusive group.

If the product has not yet moved towards the commodity, then the marketeer has to focus on the demand creation. For instance, the demand for iPhone watch is not high enough yet. In order to make it profitable in the long run, the marketeer has to identify where and how he should go campaign the product so that he can get more potential buyers. The where could be the groups who like to keep themselves abreast of the latest technology or the group that is keen on maintaining their exclusivity or the group that likes to keep themselves hooked onto the gadgets, etc. How is the mode of engagement - trade shows, promotion online, limited time bundled offer, etc. at the place where these groups are found in higher concentration.

The job of the marketeer continues beyond the sales of the product. A sale, either leads to a satisfied customer or unsatisfied customer. Depending on the levels, they will tend to work for you without added cost to you. A dissatisfied customer will spread negative campaign likewise a satisfied customer will spread positive campaign. Dissatisfaction coming from the cost wears out over a period of time, however dissatisfaction from the product performance sticks for much longer. So, bottomline - never market a product that will fail to deliver on the expectations and never over market. A role of the marketeer is also monitor the product performance and perception so that the customer satisfaction continues to be positive. Hence, the customer surveys are done. If the market is still growing, the focus may not be on the customer satisfaction, as it is assumed that the demand is an indicator of the customer satisfaction. The surveys are more common in the mature and saturated markets.

During the survey of the market, multiple related questions are asked and the responses are gauged to check the demand for the product. It is essential for a marketeer to understand which factors are causation and which are the bi-products. A focus on the bi-product, leads to stagnation and drop in the gross margin. However, the focus on the causation leads to the growth and higher gross margins. Which factors are causation changes from the market to market. However, meeting the requirement, reliability, and partnering to meet to unmet demands are most common causation factors and applicable across all the domains. There are different ways and terms to measure the customer satisfaction - brand loyalty, net promoter score, customer's wallet share, market share, etc. These are all the after effects, and one hopes that these help to predict how your customers will respond to your next set of offering or it is helps to check the switching of the customers to the competitors. In practice, what is the important is understand - "what makes your product still relevant to your customer and what will make him buy your offering or does your value proposition resonate with your customer?". In matured market for the existing product, market share cannot be grown be unless you can add new customers. This is done by causing the customer to switch loyalties or add customers from a newer segment. To achieve this, promotions are done. There are different ways to measure the success rate of the promotion - brand awareness, brand recognition, trial rates, etc. Generally, in a commodity market, making the customers to switch is difficult, as they tend to stick. Hence, the marketeer often spends a considerable portion of the marketing budget to sustain the marketing campaigns.

End of the day, sales of a product boils down to its pricing. Is your product is priced right for the customers? If you price it higher your profitability increases, but the selling becomes difficult. If you price it lower, then profitability reduces but selling becomes easier. So, a marketeer has to use a framework as shown below to decide on what is the right price - Value Price for the product so that it can be realized to improve the profitability of the company.

Since the best marketeer is a best communicator and advocate for his product, it is essential that the marketeer maintains his integrity. He is in a position of influence, which comes with the responsibility of leading the customers in the right direction.