Stop chasing the shiny bumper!
We often confuse Causation and Correlation. Nassim Taleb has written extensively, and many books about the way we analyse results. Too often we don’t have the right information. We’re not asking the right questions, and end up with a result which may look plausible, but actually is very far from reality.
In Marketing, we experience the same phenomenon. We see a campaign, or a stunt, or a digital platform or any other marketing tool, and making the assumption that this tool is responsible to the growth and success of the company using that tool. It’s like having a shiny bumper on a winning race car. Do you really think that if your car had a shiny bumper, it will also win races?
Success and growth are processes. It’s not about using this tool or that campaign. This stunt or digital platform. If Kim Kardashian made $Billions using her Instagram account, your accounting firm is unlikely to benefit from similar success, using an Instagram account. I can’t be clearer than that, can I?
I was recently called to meet with a manufacturing company, to help them get a better return on their marketing investment. They had collected all the data, and analysed spend vs. ROI, and didn’t like what they saw.
It only took me a few minutes to understand what they’ve missed. I only asked them a couple of questions, to understand who their client actually is (who pays their invoice) and who uses their product. They are often confused with each other. The user was very different from their client! Yet they’ve used a digital platform to target the user, completely neglecting their potential clients!
Identifying this issue was a simple process – just by going back to Marketing fundamentals. It’s so easy for companies to go after new shiny bumpers, they forget why they’re on the track in the first place!
Growth Gears
My colleague Art Saxby from Chief Outsiders, calls this process – Growth Gears:
The 1st gear – Perspective:
Most companies are looking at their clients, and trying to sell their wares to them, looking from their own perspective at their clients. However, the correct perspective is actually the reverse. It is looking at your company from your client’s perspective. Understanding how others (clients, partners, competitors and even employees) view your company is more beneficial to your long-term success, than having an “understanding of the client” from your company’s perspective.
In a previous post I talked about clients who are buying an 8mm drill bit. They don’t really care about the drill bit. They want a picture or a TV hung on the wall, and that drill bit is just a tool to get them what they really want. Your clients don’t really care about your products or services. They only care about themselves, and their perceived benefit of your products and services on their lives or businesses.
Understanding a client’s perspective will help you position your company, product or service in a very different light, and differently from your competitors.
The 2nd gear – Purpose:
Marketing is too important to leave it to the marketers. Once you understand the market and your company from the customer’s perspective, it’s time to make the necessary adjustments. Knowingthe perspective is just a starting point. Now it’s time to implement that knowledge.
We aren’t actually advocating that you’d do whatever the customer asks, but rather that you make a conscious decision about the direction you’d like to take, and what changes are necessary to make, to take you in that direction.
It is crucial that you bring your people along with you. You can’t change direction with a top-down approach sobre esto. Changing direction requires an operational unity, and your people need to know whythe direction is shifting, and share that sense of purpose. Your team is in charge of making the changes happen, and they will do it best if they share the vision and understand the purpose of that change.
Marketers can’t do this on their own – the customers can see right through empty marketing promises. The shift needs alignment throughout the organisation – from your sales team, through product development, accounts, production and delivery.
The 3rd gear – Precision:
This is where “marketing” goes to work. This is what people see as marketing, but all it is promotional activities, which are visible to the outside world. The previous “gears” are designed to understand the customer, understand their perspectives, and create products and services to suit their needs.
The Precisiongear is the one which take those products and services to the market. Many organisations will spend their marketing dollars on this gear, completely neglecting the other two. My manufacturing client is a clear example of that mindset. This mindset leads to “growth by hope” strategy, which I don’t recommend. Duh!
Knowing what the customer cares about and how you stand out from the competition should lead you to the types of marketing tools to use. When those tools are aligned, they can be measured and managed. You may end up using completely different tools than your competitors.
Final thought
The best marketing is done before you spend your “marketing budget”. Understanding your client in order to serve ‘em better, not sell ‘em more, will get you off the line and onto the track with a great advantage. Then it’s time to shift gears and get your team aligned on your purpose. When you have those two growth gears right, the 3rd gear will take you to the finish line. That’s how you’d be able to use your marketing tools and dollars intelligently.