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The Essence of Marketing
What is the single most important thing you need to succeed in marketing any product or or service? Here are a few hints:- It isn't technical skills.
- It isn't systems.
- It isn't creativity.
- It isn't a mailing list.
- It isn't traffic.
Those are all important, of course, but they're not the most important, in my opinion.
If you strip away all the processes, tactics, and technicalities, at the core of marketing you'll find two essential ingredients. Ignore them at your own peril, because most who do, fail—sometimes spectacularly.
At its core, the essence of marketing is this:
Identifying market wants and needs, and providing exactly that.
It's not necessarily easy, but it's that simple—find out what people want and need and sell that very thing. It's extremely difficult to create a burning desire where none exists on a large enough scale to be profitable. It's much easier to quench a desire that's already burning.
"Good marketing focuses on the customer."
Good marketing focuses on the customer, and treats them as real people instead of targets of opportunity. It further focuses on delivering value to them if they make a purchase.
You may want to read that previous paragraph one more time, it's that important.
Marketers are in the people business. The more you know about the people in your market niche, and about people in general, the better you will likely do. The more you know about what these people want and need the better you will likely do.
Too many entrepreneurs focus their sales pitch entirely on the selling process—on the outcome they want—but precious few focus on the actual prospect and what the prospect wants and needs.
When you focus on people first and on delivering value to those people based on what they already want and need, and then apply your marketing efforts to help them make an informed decision in their best interests rather than yours, you'll be steering your marketing efforts in a profitable direction. That direction will benefit you as well. You'll have happier customers, more repeat buyers, more referrals, and ultimately . . . more sales.
That's what I think. What do you think?
