Why Marketing? Why Now?

First, a brief confession. I am a "granola girl". I have been an active member of the Sierra Club for a couple of decades now. I lobby on behalf of the environment. I camp in the great outdoors. And I hang out with a significant number of like-minded individuals who think I have horns and a tail and that I've hidden my pitchfork because I work in "marketing". They just don't understand what marketing is for.

Unfortunately, neither do some of my small business clients.

Take the client that I met up with socially last week, who told me she "still had" the marketing plan we worked on together 5 years ago.

Or the client that said that investing time and money in planning was a waste of his company's money. (when asked if he ever actually implemented the last plan he had, he confessed somewhat sheepishly that it had sat in a draw once it was completed.)

Or the former client I spoke with last week who said that they were not going to do any marketing right now -- they were going to just lie low and weather the storm.

Each of these clients are smart people, but at some level they do not understand what marketing is for.

Marketing -- quite simply -- is the sum total of all activities that help you understand who your market is (and who it isn't), what they need (and what they don't), what you need to do to address those needs, and that helps you let your market know that you can help them with what they need.

Marketing helps business owners work smarter, not harder. And in a down economy it is essential to business survival.

In flush times, some entrepreneurs can afford to flail about a bit and experiment. Afterall, most folks have some money to spend, and every once in a while even a blind squirrel finds a nut. But in lean times it is more important for the business to train its sights on the best prospects -- those with money, and whose needs are undiminished by the economic downturn -- and to take some decisive steps to ensure that those prospects know you and pick you above all others.

The act of slicing your addressable market into high potentials and low potentials is called market segmentation. Market segmentation has the added benefit of helping you craft unique solutions that fit different groups within your larger market. Maybe it's a good-better-best product and pricing scheme, or maybe you have a product with different features for different market segments.

Once you have segmented your market, you will want to separate the wheat from the chaff -- you will want to winnow out the segments that are no way, no how going to buy anything from you...and you are going to stop investing time and money selling to them. Period. Save your breath. Throw your energy into attracting the attention of those high potential prospects who need you right now. That is called targeting.

Then craft a story that will force those prospects up off the couch and into your shop. So to speak. The art of creating a compelling story is called Positioning in the marketing world.

Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning are just some of the marketing techniques that good marketers employ to make their sales efforts more effective. Because they understand that when the economy dips, every step they take must be surgical in its intent.

Ok, I probably have some of you convinced that marketing is a smart thing to do afterall, but the granola eaters are still thinking I am GREAT SATAN for dirtying my hands. These folks equate all marketing with Exxon, and link my daily efforts with clubbing baby seals.

But let me ask you something...
-- do you have a pension plan? The companies the plan has invested in...do you want them to grow? Or is such growth evil? How do you plan to eat when you are 85 years old if your investments perish?
-- do you have a favorite store? Trader Joe's or Patagonia or Hemp Village? Do you think these stores understand you and your needs, wants, desires? Do they reach out and tell you about it? Or keep their fabulousness to themselves? If they reach out to you -- guess what? they are marketing! And if not, I have bad news for you, because fairly soon, you are going to have to find yourself a new store.