Overview
You have completed the positioning of a business by making marketing mix decisions such as to offer treasures, to deliver delight, to trumpet empathy, and to price as valued. The keys to taking action are to target key prospects, to reward the best, to concentrate resources, and to jump into action.
Summary of Taking Action
Target Key Prospects
Aesop advises, “Example is better than precept.” Many direct marketing companies use the traits of key customers to identify key prospects. For example, InfoUSA advertises, “We’ll analyze the customers to find hot prospects just like them!”1
The first step is to describe and delight key customers. The second step is promoting to prospects who are similar to key customers.
These key prospects will be easy to convert into highly profitable new customers. When they replace the customers the business lost, the business will magnify its profits. The ninth key to enhancing profits is to target key prospects.
Reward the Best
A manager said, “We do whatever it takes to keep complainers from switching to a competitor.” Speechless from her flawed logic, I thought, “That’s why you’re going through a difficult time.” Aesop implies that a business cannot rely on a complainer to “save it in the time of trouble.” Most sales people neglect those who become key customers, but they may switch to a competitor.
Dissatisfied customers seek what the business does not offer. According to Pareto’s law, less than 1 percent of complainers spew over half of the complaints. Discourage complainers by stratifying your customer service policies. For example, automate routine interactions with the bottom 80 percent of customers or to redefine the target market to exclude customers who tend to complain.
Reward key customer as they reward the business. Options are to provide better products, value-added services, volume discounts, automatic reordering, and prestige. The tenth key to profitable marketing is to reward the best.
Concentrate Resources
Aesop’s neighbor buries his wealth, but his servant steals it. Aesop says, “Unused possessions create no good.”
A successful business provides benefits to its customers, income to its employees, and profits to its investors. Evaluate the profitability of various opportunities and select the one that promises the best profits. Pareto’s law predicts that the top 20 percent of inputs will produce 80 percent of the results.
The eleventh key to enhanced profits is to concentrate resources. A financial review describes current and possible outcomes from these decisions. The eleventh key to enhancing profits is to concentrate resources.
Jump into Action
Aesop implies that we must prove the effectiveness of our marketing decisions by deeds, not words. This means that we must implement our strategic marketing plan.
We can put our marketing decisions into action with a project development schedule. Include how long each task requires, the critical path, and the duration of the project. Execute the project and then monitor and control its results until the project is completed.
A business creates a project development schedules for each project and accumulates them for each functional area and rolls them up the hierarchy of the business.
Let us review the keys to enhancing profits. Based on SWOT (strength, weakness, opportunity, threat) analysis, you decided to focus on quality, describe key customers compete on strength, and delegate weaknesses. Your marketing mix decisions positioned the business to offer treasures, deliver delight, trumpet empathy, and price as valued. The keys to taking action are to target key prospects, reward the best, concentrate resources, and jump into action.
When combined, these 12 key marketing decisions encompass all components of a strategic marketing plan. Each decision applies Pareto’s law so that the business can magnify its profits.
Answer the questions at the end of each chapter and you will summarize the 12 strategic marketing decisions of the business. Revise the marketing plan at least annually and as often as necessary.
Once you have completed the entire marketing plan, you are ready to write a one-page executive summary of the 12 strategic marketing decisions. The executive summary only includes key activities and milestones.
If a black man in Alabama can start up a business and become a multimillionaire, so can you. Just notice what people need and fulfill those needs. The 12th key to enhancing profits is to jump into action.