Marketing Mistakes
by Phil Phillips, PhD
Contributing Editor
phillips@chemarkconsulting.net
Ever since I took several MBA courses, at Northwestern, I’ve been a fan of Dr. Philip Kotler (Professor
of International Marketing at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management). So
when he discusses anything about marketing, I listen. Kotler says “marketing as
a practice is in bad shape,” and I believe it.
Especially since, I share this position.
Kotler does not mean the theory of marketing but the PRACTICE of marketing is
in bad shape.
At present, many of our value chain participant companies (feedstock, raw material,
formulator, and distributor) do not successfully handle this entire process. We do a
great deal of talking about the importance
of “bundling, CRM, competing globally, the
Wal-Mart syndrome, and differentiation,
while we cut marketing during times of
down turns when it is exactly the time to
function on all cylinders efficiently and effectively in marketing your products.
So, if marketing is so important, what
are the key functions of marketing? Marketing’s main functions, I believe, have
three important interrelated components:
1. To develop a plan for a product/service, which supports the firms’ strategy.
2. To bring the firm a strategic ROI.
3. To provide coverage for the investment in both time and funding.
Additionally, I believe marketing must
“pull” the firms resources through the
strategic plan and “push” it (a total systems package) through sales by creating a
“must have” acceptance within the targeted market segments.
Professor Kotler has listed “ 10
Deadly Sins of Marketing” in his book
of the same name. I would like to suggest there are five critical mistakes that
left unchecked could be catastrophic to
the firm.
Your firm may be making these mistakes if you are:
1. Lacking total value chain efficiencies
and end-user focus.
2. Deficient in detailed understanding
of your competitors and their strategic impact on your business if their
plans are successful.
3. Not managing backroom, stakeholder relationships well.
4. Failing to understand “branding,”
and how to develop and use it successfully in combination with all offering components.
5. Lacking market plans and planning
process efficiencies.
Let’s discuss each one of these mistakes
and how to make them go away.
Lacking total value chain
efficiencies and end-user focus
There are two extremes impacting this
issue. Either the firm has not gained succinct insight into its market opportunities
or it is not well organized to serve and deliver what the target users expect. To resolve these issues one must diligently
determine a market by specific needs
within a segment and not simply by demographic or descriptive definition levels
alone.
Sub-tactics to this segment analysis
issue that will assist you in successful mar-
keting, are:
• Segment prioritization, seeking cus-
tomized compelling offerings at each
level.
• A transparent ease of customer-to-firm communications via websites
and other.
Deficient in detailed
understanding of your
competitors and their strategic
impact on your business if
their plans are successful
Core competitors must be correctly identified by specific segments plus an unbiased transparent assessment of each must
be made and, on a planned frequency.
The obvious tactics to use in a com-
petitive assessment are to:
• Establish a “captain-of-competition”
responsible for collecting and dissem-
ination of competitive intelligence.
Not managing backroom,
stakeholder relationships well
Stakeholders are those persons who have
“skin-in-the-game” such as employees,
suppliers, distributors and investors. The
indications that stakeholders are not fully
on board and committed are: universally
unhappy employees; lack of attracting the
best suppliers and/or distributors, and investors feel they are out of the communications loop and unhappy.
Some of the resolutions to the stakehold-
ers’ contribution to the firms’ success are:
•Management has a significant re-
