This seems to be the topic of the marketing world for 2020. Marketing should be focused on the customer. If that seems like what marketers have been doing forever, it might be, but it might not! The first confusion!
The second confusion is that in or part of the world, promotional specialty advertising & marketing, the client is not usually the client of focus. In the simplest terms, we generally have at least two clients that need some focus. Determining the "primary" client focus is what will win business now and in the future.
In general the clients of promotional advertising people are businesses that want to communicate with their customers and/or employees. The primary customer to focus on is not your buyer but rather the individuals they want to influence. Most businesses can give you a good description of their best prospect or the people they want to deliver their message to. Once you have the basic information, developing more specific customer focused concepts is not very difficult.
If for example your buyer says she wants to get a message to new car buyers, online available information will tell you in minutes that the average age of a new car buyer is 53; average income is $80,000, and the most popular color of a new car is silver at 23% of all sold. With the additional information you can tailor your recommendations to be attractive to the exact prospect the client is searching for.
My new campaign is to refer to our industry as "promotional products media," rather just promotional products. The difference is enormous. When developing concepts for your clients that will get their message to the customer they are focused on, you want to be all about the objective, not the object. Just as other media will recommend the best time of day to run a tv ad or the best section of the newspaper to be in, we suggest the most effective "promotional products media" that will be attractive to the recipient, has the greatest likelihood of repeat messaging and is within the established target.
As 2020 and beyond unfolds we will see increased interest in our industry from some large conglomerate operations, online mega-sellers, and offshore direct sellers. When you add that many new (young) buyers will be very comfortable sourcing in the online environment, the need for customer focused marketing - marketing that requires your personal knowledge, experience, and skill will be essential. As I have mentioned in the column before, "Do It Yourself" might be fine for handy people around the house, but marketing is not a do-it-yourself situation. The basic flaw is that a business owner/operator has a producer perspective, not a consumer. Your input with a consumer (customer) is what will accomplish the objective.
Research is essential. Unless you are exactly the best prospect for your buyer to reach, you can't use your own likes as the only determining factor. In the illustration of the typical car buyer, $80,000 is the average income. If your income is twice that you might have a different interest in services, auto accessories, and special offers.
Regarding younger buyers (not exclusively as some veteran business owners/operators consider themselves to be experts in every aspect of their business) the point that is most important to discuss is that an advertising project that works is far more valuable than the one that does not even if the cost was a little less. In fact, a project that does not work is the most expensive advertising a business could do. And if you have the very real concern that the buyer will simply go online and shop for what you recommend - they only get to do that once!
One final note on promotional products media - if you want your buyer to accept you as a professional and your work as valuable, don't use derogatory, negative, slang, or "clever" terns that only refer to the tools we use, not the work we do. Keep your discussion with your buyer about his/her reason for advertising, the outcome they want, not the price of the item that will deliver the message.
Gregg Emmer is chief marketing officer and vice president at Kaeser & Blair, Inc. He has more than 40 years experience in marketing and the promotional products industry. His outside consultancy provides marketing, public relations and business planning consulting to a wide range of other businesses and has been a useful knowledge base for K&B Dealers. Contact Gregg at gemmer@kaeser-blair.com.