我談行銷

行銷人員的訓練

I told my team member how to become a good marketing expertise.

He should be confident while he is doing his job and gives presentation.
He should be humble while some others are critcize him and he should learn in these conditions.

He can explain his consideration and his point of view, but too many arguement may hurt his professional image.

Talking about marketing, it is a subjective opinions by different points of view. It is very difficult to pursuade any others to accept one's marketing concepts without good first impression. So, the first image or impression is so important before a marketing person presents his idea.

Passion is a key point for a marketing person, but passion is not messing. Many people think a marketing person should be aggressive, shown-off and talkative. And they misunderstand that a marketing guy should be crazy. These concepts are right and wrong by half each. Many marketing thunking should be disciplined. It follows some rules. Just as a musician or an artist, any of invention and creation is based on the basic discipline.

Discipline is not a rigid rule. Discipline is a working habit. It is a leading and cowork style


Marketing by differentiation

There are three competition strategies written by Michael Porter, which are cost, focus and differentiation. How can we win the competition by marketing? The answer is differentiation. There are four steps to make it.

First: Define the unique selling value.
Customers like to treat the products or services as a commodity and then they can ask the lowest price, the best terms, and any concessions out of you. So it is your job to prevent it from becoming commodity and define the unique selling value.

Second: Understand what the customers will pay for.
Customers will pay for (1) making money or saving cost, (2) increasing efficiency or becoming convenient, (3) becoming beautiful or healthy, (4) winning reputation or satisfaction. And business customers will buy the competitive advantage compared to alternative solutions. They compare the features, functions, reliability, flexibility, user-friendliness, cost-benefit and return-on-investment.
For bigger enterprises, they will pay higher for (1) longer term warrantee, (2) high quality and real-time service, (3) extended solution and scale capability, (4) partnership or cross-selling opportunities.
Recently, many customers would pay for dream-come-true experience or intangible services such as space traveling experience.

Third: Build & sustain differentiation.
Some difference of product is easily duplicated and mimicked, so you should put more effort, money, time and attention on differentiation. Many products are designed and shown as the core value, and when it comes to the market, it has different comprehension. Many accessories or value-added services could overshine their original purpose. So it is good to emphasize these points and make it different and valuable. Anyway, the differentiation should be based on the core value, and then decorated by marginal benefits.

Finally: Communicate and deliver the difference.
First line contact: Sales and service will differentiate themselves by their experiences, knowledge of industries and business savvy.
Back office line: Marketing will build up the brand and apply any data analysis tool to dig deep into customer need and satisfaction level so as to win the credibility and loyalty. For communication, customers’ endorsement based on their experience will be the best promotion material. And the mouth-of-word will be the best media tool!