Mistakes do occur in marketing and they stem from what many marketers take for granted, They are most of the time regarded as small issues and they cost the brand a lot of goodwill on the part of the consumers and revenue eventually.
The soul, heart, and cornerstone of your business is marketing. Some may actually have the wrong notion that it should be production but the fact remains that you must create relationships with and satisfy customers.
Once you are not able to effectively have your customers vouchsafing for you, you can consider your business dead. If you are not in the business of letting consumers see why they should choose your product or service over those of your competitors, then you are not doing marketing.
Marketing is a process, not an event. It involves planning marketing goals and implementing (often a series of) marketing strategies to achieve them. Any issue that crops up in the process must, therefore, be fixed promptly. No mistakes can be taken for granted. No issue is small in marketing.
Incidentally, marketing does overlap heavily with advertising and sales. Marketing is present in all stages of the business, beginning to end. This is the reason you need to take mistakes even if you consider them minor, very seriously.
The 4 Ps of marketing explains how marketing is involved in all the stages of any business. The 3 Rs of strategic marketing also reveals that every bit or piece works towards a wholesome brand.
Product
It’s absolutely impracticable for you to just produce anything you like and send it to the market with the belief that consumers will go for it. That is a sure way of committing “marketing suicide.”
You must pass through the ideation stage, where the idea for the product is conceived. Then, the marketing department gets on to test the new product concepts with focus groups and surveys to ascertain interest levels among potential buyers.
Marketers use the answers to these questions to help businesses understand the demand for the product and increase product quality by mentioning concerns stemming from a focus group or survey participants. Based on the favorable disposition of consumers to the product, brands will then decide what styles, sizes, flavors, and scents they should sell and the packaging designs they should use.
Consumers have much input in these decisions. One negative customer review is enough to cause untold damage if not handled properly. You can’t afford to shrug it off with that “quick-tempered customer.”
Price
You also need to use focus groups and survey to fix the price of your product or service. A very good way to determine price is to set it at a level comparable to competitors; that is if the company can recover all associated product expenses and still make a profit.
When your brand is pushing a new product to the market that has never existed, it becomes necessary to gauge the consumers on how much they are willing to pay for the product. A very big source of mistakes here is not to take consumers into consideration before fixing a price.
“The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.” — Peter F. Drucker
Customers will only pay so much for products. Price a product higher, and sales can drop off exponentially. Price it too low, and you might lose more money than you gain.
Promotion
A lot of marketers make mistakes about the concept of promotion. They erroneously believe that this is all that the marketing department is about.
Promotion, however, refers to the integrated marketing communications campaign. Promotional activities may include advertising, personal selling, sales promotions, public relations, direct marketing, sponsorship, and guerrilla marketing.
Promotions are likely to vary depending on what stage of the product life cycle the product is in. Promotions usually have two purposes: generate leads for sales reps or initiate actual purchases.
Place
All distribution decisions are part of the overall marketing process and place is about the distribution of the product. Key considerations include whether the company will sell the product through a physical storefront, online or through both distribution channels?
Concerted efforts must be made in order not to make mistakes about the distribution channels of the product. What goes for one product may not go for another and marketers must constantly be on their toes.
Consumer product companies, for example, sell to wholesalers who, in turn, sell to retailers. In the industrial market, the buying process is longer and involves more decision makers.
Some companies also sell products or services on a local level, while others sell nationally, and even internationally. As of 2015, approximately 70 percent of U.S. adults shop online at least monthly, and 33 percent shop online every week.
Experts expect online sales in the United States to increase from $445 billion in 2017 to over $600 billion in 2020 and over $1 trillion by 2027. Taking these statistics into consideration, it is vital for marketers to use online tools such as social media and digital advertising, both on website and mobile device applications, and internet forums.
To avoid compounding mistakes in marketing, marketers must be able to identify the three main purposes of marketing: capture the attention of a target market, facilitate the prospect’s purchasing decision, and provide the customer with a specific, low-risk and easy-to-take action.
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