This is not so much an executive summary as a statement of those things marketers have to ensure happens in their heads and in their actions when they embark on a marketing campaign. I rather suppose Moses, had he lived today, would have brought down laminates rather than tablets of stone from Mount Sinai, or even a PowerPoint presentation. We’re going to settle for paper.
The five things that matter most are:
- The customer or consumer.
- The product or service.
- The weapons available with which to go and market.
- The issue of branding.
- What you the smaller marketer do, as you are the future.
The Ten Customer Commandments
- Remember, they are right (even when you think they are wrong).
- Spend as much time as you can listening to them and to as many different types of them as possible.
- Give them unexpected treats to say ‘thank you’ for being loyal – never take them for granted.
- Never stop wooing them and romancing your brand.
- Try and find out those little things in life that irritate them.
- Understand how people are different and why and how to work with this so you can fix them.
- When you make a mistake say ‘sorry’ and put it right.
- Ask them to introduce you to their friends.
- Always be faithful to them and their changing needs.
- Love your consumer as though you were married to them.
The customers who buy your product or service come first. Without them and their support nothing will happen. Your love affair with them and the way in which you woo and look after them will determine your success. And remember your customer is always right. Even when they are wrong.
The Ten Product or Service Commandments
- Be better value than your competitor … make it easy to buy you.
- Be simpler. Cut out the unnecessary knobs and switches.
- Solve points of irritation, those things in a process or product sector that really rile people.
- Constantly change and improve … never stop trying to get better.
- Spread your appeal to your consumers. Can you extend your portfolio by price or function and reach more people?
- Be easy – use simple language and don’t package your product so people can’t get at it or understand it.
- Be fast. Speed is an advantage. Next-day delivery. Call back/email back in hours, not days.
- Merchandise your successes. Tell people how well it’s going. Make them feel part of a ‘success club’.
- Be irrational about quality. If you spot a problem, stop it. Never ship sub-standard products.
- Love your own product. Are you really proud of it?
If you don’t have a fetish about your product or service, if you aren’t constantly trying to see how to make it better or easier to use, then you aren’t serving the interests of the consumer or your business. Too little is written about product. If your product isn’t good enough there’s only so much your marketing can do to help you.
The Ten Marketing-Weapon Commandments
- You need to find an advertising idea that you love and that cuts through, even if you can’t afford to spend money on advertising (yet). It’ll be the soul of your sales pitch.
- You need to create fact-based interesting stories the whole time to maintain PR momentum.
- If your web site isn’t wonderful that’s a problem. They are relatively low cost to create now. It mostly needs your time and creativity. This is your first priority.
- Social and word of mouth are the low-cost ways of spreading your good word. But if you find it hard to focus on Twitter, build a conversational base to start with. Do not try selling.
- Sponsorship is expensive to do well but can sometimes be a magic solution.
- Do you really love the design of your product and its packaging? If not fix it.
- Direct marketing in the form of e-letters, fliers and one-to-one presentations can work brilliantly if you do them brilliantly. Otherwise don’t.
- Customer-relationship marketing and selling are at the centre of any marketing plan. Your customers make your business. Are you spending enough time listening to them?
- Buzz and experiential: the way to put sex appeal at low cost into your marketing. But don’t do it unless you believe it really makes £1 look like £10.
- Pulling it all together is the trick. Balance budget against the key deliverables. Don’t try and do too much. Focus the bulk of your spend on what is most important to your plan.
These weapons, powerful as they are, won’t work unless there’s a strong central idea holding them together: something that is distinctive, memorable and that makes a competitive claim. Your problem is breadth of choice – what you can afford in relation to what will do the job. It’s your decision. The trick is to keep it very simple. Be bold but not too tricky.
The Ten Branding Commandments
- What do you want people to think, feel and like about your brand?
- Give your brand a personality … think of it as a real thing itself, not just a product. Imagine your whole reputation was sunk into it. It’s that important.
- And a two- or three-word equity. For example: authentic, Venezuelan chocolate. For example: real bikers’ oil. A summary claim of your specialness.
- Give it a great name or your name. Don’t end up with a willowy, forgettable nothing.
- Money spent on design won’t be wasted. Ever. If your designer understands what you are looking for your brand to be like he may astound you.
- Use your instincts. This is gut time, not brain time.
- Look at what other great brands do … borrow, steal, imitate and be inspired by them.
- Be ambitious. Why not? Dream a little. Imagine what success might be like and how you might get there.
- Attitude wins. Attitude is your red thread … what you really believe in … what you’d die for.
- Brands are worth money. Much more money than products. That alone makes this value-adding process fun. It also makes it expensive for lesser beings to compete with you.
The Holy Grail of marketing lies in branding. Create a brand, develop a brand and discover the amazing added value in intangibles you’ve been responsible for. Brands are sexy. Brands have a desirability that’s far greater than a simple product. But when you have a brand, rather like a splendid plant, you have to water and nourish it. Brands are the virtual pets of marketing.
The Ten Small Commandments (for small businesses)
- You’ve got to have a great product of which you’re really proud. Just ‘OK’ is no good.
- Be obsessed with detail. Little things make a huge difference and small businesses can get this right.
- Do everything you do as though it was a ‘big show’ – be theatrical, not meek.
- Love your brand obsessively. This is your life.
- You are a nimble lightweight; pity the slow-moving overweights. Never underestimate the benefits of the speed and flexibility you can offer.
- Think big; act small. No one need know how small you really are. That’s where web sites offer a vast plus to small businesses.
- Spend half your time on your product; half your time on your marketing of it.
- Spend lots of time talking to your customers. Always have something interesting and new to say.
- Run a transparent business – avoid springing nasty surprises (especially on investors or banks).
- Keep the good news coming – we all want you to win and read about you winning.
Being small is where Apple and Microsoft started. Heinz and Ford both went bust a few times before they got it right. Being small is being in control of your own destiny. Be mean and keen. You won’t get rich fast but if it goes well, who knows? In the meantime, market that great little brand of yours with all the energy you have, making every single penny really count.
The final say
- Watch the money. Having little money often means having to be very resourceful. Be very careful with money. Pay your bills. Don’t be unkind to suppliers but look at every £ on the basis of its being your duty as a marketer to multiply its impact and get a great return on investment.
- Inspire the creativity. This is the ‘magic marketing juice’: the nutrient that turns a good idea into a brilliant idea. This is where you must be utterly unreasonable. If what you have got or are given isn’t brilliant, try again and again and again and again until something special happens.
Unless you can achieve brilliance in marketing you’ll fail. There’s too much noise in our lives. And there are too many products and too many companies to choose from. As with our schools, anything rated less than ‘outstanding’ stands for nothing at all.