Emily R. Coleman has more than 30 years of hands-on experience in virtually every aspect of marketing. She is known for her creativity and innovation. More important, she understands how to develop strategies and implementation tactics that benefit the bottom-line, for both large and small companies.
As marketing people, we spend a good deal of our time trying to find the most appealing way to describe our value proposition. We develop strategies and tactics to exploit what we see as opportunities in the marketplace. We hone our messages to resonate with our customers and prospects. We target niches and sharpen our approaches even further. We focus on rational buying behavior and latent needs.
It is a truism in consumer marketing and advertising that putting puppies, kittens, or kids in an ad or on a product evokes an “aw” response. They automatically get attention. (Where would the Super Bowl ads be without at least one commercial with a dog in it?) But they do more than just get our attention. We are hardwired to feel open and unguarded when confronted with these kinds of images.
A culture of innovation tolerates people with large egos while demanding a respect for others’ egos. Ideas generally come from a single individual, not from a committee. Bringing them to market, however, is almost never an individual effort. Bringing ideas to market requires the marshalling of diverse and disparate organizational elements: finance, IT, marketing, often HR, and that most valuable of corporate resources–executive vision.
My favorite example of marketing arrogance comes from General Motors. A number of years ago, GM introduced a totally redesigned model sedan. Personally, I thought it was exceptionally ugly; it reminded me of a hearse. And, apparently, I was not alone in that opinion. It was a dismal failure in the marketplace.
There are very few modern women who have not, at some point, muttered about the sadist who thought up high-heeled shoes. Ever wonder how the fashion started?
Smaller business marketing teams have the same needs as larger marketing departments: to build identity, brand recognition and customer engagement. And most entrepreneurs and smaller company executives understand these needs, even if they don’t use the right jargon.
A product is far larger than these so-called “life cycle” models would suggest. A product is a lynch-pin in a company’s overall marketing strategy. It is a building block in the company’s identity. It is a way to build the company’s reputation. Each product is a critical part of what that company is.
Every field develops its own arcane language. Every once in a while, it becomes useful to take this jargon out of the rarefied air of the “professionals” and bring it back down to earth. Dr. Emily R Coleman guides us through the most confusing marketing terms and definitions.
Does your marketing strategy unknowingly suffer from a lack of focus, complacency or other issue that directly impacts its success? Guest contributor Dr. Emily R. Coleman explores the seven deadly sins that might be stifling your marketing efforts.
While we spend our time trying to create an effective social media presence, while we hire SEO firms and “social media marketing managers,” we cheerfully ignore a tremendous social media marketing asset: employees. But this asset needs to be cultivated and informed about marketing.
The best B2B technology marketing resources explain our products and their benefits without losing these important attributes in technical jargon.
Social media networks and communities of like interest are both broader (geography no longer matters at all) and more fluid than they have ever been. We need to ask some more basic questions, I think, before we can determine how to most effectively market in this brave new world and before we can realistically start to determine its ROI.
So you’re connecting like a madman on LinkedIn. Your Facebook likes are growing by leaps and bounds. It’s hard to keep up with the number of people following you on Twitter. You’ve got Pinterest and Google+ aced. You’re a social media pro. So what?
We are all busy acquiring knowledge – in social media marketing, in mobile marketing, in customer relations management (CRM), in customer engagement, in “content” marketing, and on and on. As soon as there is a new buzz word or piece of jargon created (by whomever), marketers feel compelled to elevate it to the level of a discipline. And we should. But we must also be clear that this knowledge doesn't equate to marketing wisdom.