There is perhaps no other word in business with more different meanings to people than marketing. Some people think it is synonymous with sales. Others can’t decide if it applies to their business or the goods or services they sell. Still others have no idea what makes marketing different from advertising. And I have encountered some who equate marketing with public relations.
If you are already thinking it is all just words and who cares what people think it means – you are not alone. Many business people react that way almost up to the moment they go out of business! Without understanding you cannot utilize marketing to your benefit. Even if you engage in some advertising, the results will never be as good as a solid marketing plan. Having addressed some of the importance of understanding what marketing and advertising do in a previous article, I will focus on what you can do to market your business.
Anyone familiar with my columns or those who have attended any training sessions with me will know my concise definition – Advertising Informs; Marketing Motivates. This is the simplest way to understand the differences and to see that marketing is not sales but rather a conduit to a successful sale. In the promotional marketing/specialty advertising industry marketing is a bit more difficult to get a handle on because we are always operating on two levels. When we are at our best we are creating marketing support for our clients and we are marketing our own businesses.
The academic definition of marketing is that it is an administrative activity involved with the development of products or services, the manufacture, packaging and distribution of those products or services to a defined market (customer) previously identified by research. That description may have reasonable accuracy when applied to consumer goods and services but the promotional marketing/specialty advertising industry is quite a bit different.
We are segmented. In general suppliers either develop or source products others have developed. Unlike consumer products that must appeal to individuals for their personal buying decision, products in our industry must be appropriate in delivering a message leading to a desired outcome, and do it within established budgets.
Suppliers have the task of letting distributors know what they have available but distributors must help clients decide what is appropriate for the project at hand. Both these activities are advertising or the exchange of information. If however you make a recommendation and are able to offer a price reduction – that’s marketing! Any reason you offer for a customer to do business with you is marketing. It is marketing that builds relationships and repeat business. If a business operator hands a travel mug to a customer when they are checking out and says thanks for your business – the mug is advertising. If they announced that all customers will get a free mug, that’s marketing.
Looking at your own business, do you market? Do you offer specific reasons for customers to choose you to do business with? Compliments if you do, but are you simply mimicking what you see at retail? Discounts, free goods, reduced setups and other “pass through” benefits have their place, but you can do better marketing. Offer a free service like a marketing survey of your client’s business. Do they have a complete understanding of who their best customers are? Are they focusing their marketing on those clients? Are internal activities (staff training, turnover, theft, violence, etc.) putting pressure on the business? You can design a survey that gets emailed, hand delivered or actually taken face to face. In 10 minutes or less you can build a relationship based on your client’s success, not your own. Once you and your client know exactly what is desired – the outcome, you can make stunningly fine recommendations.
Your marketing can include being a good citizen and neighbor. Being associated with projects, school athletics, social service agencies and the like will attract customers to your business. The key is to find ways of letting customers know about your good work while still letting the people assisted by those activities be the focus. Getting someone to report on what you do is always better than making your own announcement. A printing company that I owned supported several organizations. A school was hosting the moving Vietnam Memorial Wall and wanted my sponsorship. I simply asked the school to issue a news release telling the public of my involvement rather than having the information come from me and my company. That created much greater impact. A religious social service agency hosted a summer poetry class for inner-city kids. I published a book containing all the poems they wrote and donated them to the organization. The resulting news coverage that the agency (not my company) arranged brought many new clients to my business.
Another tactic to gain community recognition without waving your own flag is to provide a fundraising opportunity to appropriate organizations that you sponsor with your profit. You have no out-of-pocket costs but get high quality brand equity. For example several seasons ago a high school basketball team was having an exceptional season. I suggested that the distributor/salesperson that called on the school propose doing 500 stadium cushions of which they would cover 30 percent of the cost. The school athletic boosters then sold the cushions and cleared a full $4 each resulting in a $2,000 boost to their treasury. The cushions had a line stating that they were a courtesy of the promotional distributor. That lead to similar promotions with the school and lots of new business for the distributor.
If you have a great idea that a distributor can use to market themselves in a creative way, I invite you to share it with a comment to this article. Marketing does matter!
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 specialty advertising industry. His outside consultancy provides marketing, public relations and business planning consulting to a wide range of other businesses has been a useful knowledge base for K&B Dealers. Contact Gregg at gemmer@kaeser-blair.com.