Eight Myths of Marketing

Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted…

…trouble is, I don’t know which half.

Marketing Can’t be MeasuredYou can calculate ROI, customer acquisition costs, share of voice, share of choice, customer sentiment,brand reputation and a number of other things. Measurement is important but it’s critical to ensure that yourmetrics are aligned with your business outcomes. As the saying goes, if you don’t know where you want to go, any road will get

you There. Here is a link that will help you get started http://bit.ly/w7LFdY

Effective Ads are LogicalPeople are emotional creatures. We buy for emotional reasons then support those choices with logic. Harvard Business School Professor Gerald Zaltzman has done extensive research on consumer behavior and concluded that up to 95% of consumer decisions are based on subconscious or emotional reasons. In a battle between emotion (the elephant) and logic (the rider), the elephant will always win. Indeed, the only way to stand out from the crowd is to create emotional messages that connect with your audience.

Rider: The logical, verbal, thinking, conscious mind

Elephant: The automatic, non-verbal, visceral, emotional, subconscious mind

Price Determines ValueVALUE = Benefits / CostValue is a subjective term that relates to the consumer’s experience with a product. Value is calculated by the consumer and whileprice is an important consideration, it represents only one half of the value equation. Based on this equation, there are only two waysto increase value. First is to decrease the cost of a product or service. This is the easiest way to increase value but it has a drawback – By lowering your price, you commoditize your brand and position yourself against every competitor who can offer their products cheaper. Second, is to increase the benefit of the product or service. This is the harder path to take initially but will pay dividends in the months and years to come. Adding benefit to your offering makes it harder to replicate when the benefit is something unique to your offering.

You Control Your Brand A brand is not what you say it is, it’s what customers say it is. The way a customer talks about your brand depends on the experience they had

with it. If their experience matched or exceeded their expectations, your brand develops a positive reputation. If the experience your brand

under-delivers, then your brand reputation will rightly suffer. In this way, you are only a guardian of the brand which means its your job to protect the

perception and sentiment of it by listening to what your customers have to say. This is the central theme of Coca-Cola’s revolutionary new marketing

strategy Content 2020 – have a look at part one http://bit.ly/qLmtXF and part two http://bit.ly/HjWut5 .

Advertising Creates DemandDemand is created by a void in the consumer marketplace. Consumers may not realized that there even is a void, this is the job of the marketer – to

identify or anticipate a need. The product or service that fills this space is then supplied based on size of the void. No amount of advertising can

save a bad idea. At it’s very best, advertising can create awareness of the void and the solution that your company provides. In reality, the supply

and demand statement is more accurately stated as demand and supply.

Marketing = AdvertisingMarketing is a strategy that encompasses the co-ordination of many brand-consumer touch points. The goal of marketing is to provide customers

with a consistent brand experience across all touch points. Advertising is a tactic that usually involves creating commercial messages and buying

access to audiences so as to distribute your message to target markets in specific mediums.

Everyone is Buying NOW!The marketplace is a dynamic environment that is constantly changing and evolving. As there are many different triggers to initiate a buying cycle,

there are also many factors that contribute to the length of the average buying cycle. However, what is certain is that not everyone is buying now. In

A week, there are more potential buyers than there are today. Similarily, in a year there are more potential buyers than in a month. A marketing

plan that offers consistent value to prospects and clients has the best chance of delivering results because it eliminates the guesswork of predicting

consumer behavior.

How’d You Hear About Us?This question is one of the worst ways to evaluate any kind of campaign. The average consumer is bombarded by 3,000 ads in every single day.

Your message isn’t competing against your industry competitors, it’s competing for consumer attention against all 3000 other advertisers. There

are at least two studies (Millward Brown & Michael Corbett) that have confirmed that customers have no idea where they heard or saw your ad.

Don’t bother asking, you won’t get an accurate answer. Instead, measure your sales over time or by postal code in the areas affected by the

medium.

@marcbinkleyblog.marcbinkley.ca