A Marketing Scrooge - Part 1
I love Christmas and everything about it, it gives me all the festive feels so let’s just be clear, I’m not a traditional Scrooge.
In this twisted up (and grossly bastardised take on the classic) I’m a marketing Scrooge, and just lately I’ve started developing more and more rage about the way people - and I can use my clients as a yardstick for this- are being made to feel like they don’t know enough to be successful and that expensive solutions (you can also read experts/gurus here) are the only answer. So, in the spirit of giving and paying it forward I thought I’d present my own three Christmas ghosts:
Up first, the ghost of Christmas past- what do you mean you don’t know what customers want, haven’t you ever bought anything?
Next up, the ghost of Christmas present- stop confusing people with lots of words, let’s get Ronseal about this whole thing.
And finally, the ghost of Christmas yet to come- never stop learning and never assume someone else knows it all.
So, are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin by setting the scene...
You’ve got your own little business, wages are high, taxes are due and sales are important. The important question is, how do you get those sales? Do you know what needs to happen? Of course not, you’ve never done marketing before I hear you cry.
Well firstly, don’t panic. There are two very key things here that I believe to be important to how you develop your marketing strategy. At first these will seem contradictory, but if you keep reading you’ll realise they’re actually not...
You are a consumer, a customer, think about how you like to be sold to. What kind of things grab your attention, what kind of things make you click ‘buy now’ or impulse purchase something you weren’t even considering before
You are not your only customer, just because you love it doesn’t mean that everyone else will!
I know, I know, I’ve contradicted myself there but just think about both of those things. If you’re a customer so are your friends, your colleagues, your employees, your parents... there’s a vast range of people you can ask and ask you should because you’ll learn from these peoples’ past experiences (as long as they’re a
sensible target customer) and it will help you develop a vision for how you could sell your product/service/genius idea.
But. And this is the big one, whatever information you gather look at it dispassionately. Never chose a campaign, a logo, a pack design because you love it- chose because you think it will work well - stand out on shelf, has a unique usp and/or design, will shout out over all the other messages people are faced with. Think from other angles that may not be ones you’d immediately think of- is it legible for those who are visually impaired, does it look too cheap/too expensive/too much hassle... really think about it from an outside
perspective.
I cannot stress enough how these two key things are the foundations on which you build your campaign – yes you need the words, the design, the concept but if you’ve got these foundations sorted your part of the way there. It answers some really simple questions such as:
Where are your target customers – what platforms do they shop on
What age range are you targeting – different generations respond to different message
What other interests do your customers have – can you leverage these connections
All of these are your foundation pieces and without those you cannot move onto the next stages.
So, that’s my first thought and my ghost of Christmas past. Listen to your experiences- as long as you
temper them with self-control and perspective; you can never listen or understand too much about your customer.