The octopus’ guide to business

Question

Dear AFETT:

My name is George and I have been an entrepreneur for the past five years in the retail industry. While business has been going good, it is not great. I currently use social media to market my business but all of my current customers are return customers and I have not had any new customers recently. I have been advised that my business is in dire need of a strong marketing strategy. However, with the many tasks that I currently undertake, I am a bit apprehensive about shifting resources towards the development of a marketing strategy. Can you shed some light on the benefits of marketing for a business like mine and how it can help with sustained growth and development?

Signed,

Curious George

Dear Curious George,

Marketing in its most basic sense, is finding the right consumers, knowing where they are and influencing them to take action. However, in the jarring marketplace characterised by frenzied customer attention, these tasks can be daunting for entrepreneurs. This begs the question: “How can marketing give value versus just being a cost centre?”

Here are some ways that marketing can benefit entrepreneurs:

Marketing gives entrepreneurs insights

Marketing gives value only when it can be analysed and measured. If it cannot be, then it is a failed effort. There are a number of metrics that marketers use such as: web analytics, email analytics, engagement, customer retention rate, customer lifetime value, repeat purchase rate, average order value (the average amount a customer spends), profitability per order and purchase frequency, to name a few. Many entrepreneurs focus so much on their “inbound marketing” efforts (eg content generation and social media) that they completely overlook analysis, which is crucial to improving results (eg which marketing channel is performing best? Or what are our most effective customer touch points?).

Marketing drives your brand equity

Creating value for both the consumer and the brand must be at the heart of any marketing activity. It can therefore be said that having empathy for the customer precedes any marketing effort.

David Aaker refers to the value delivered by brands as “brand equity,” which he says is “a set of brand assets and liabilities linked to a brand, its name and symbol, that add to or subtract from the value provided by a product or service to a firm and/or to that firm’s customers."

Brand equity can also be defined as how the customer feels about a brand’s values and attributes and indeed, how they feel about their entire customer experience. Positive brand equity could lead to entrepreneurs having more brand awareness and loyalty (the ability to charge a premium price) and to also launch product line extensions (eg new formulations, size of packaging, features, etc)

Marketing supports your sales

Marketing inherently is the “want.” This means that marketing tries to get the company to make what the customer wants. As opposed to “selling,” which tries to get customers to want what the company makes. We can use the analogy that marketing is the entrepreneur’s homework, while selling is the entrepreneur’s “exam” – or the ultimate test of getting consumers to buy a product or service.

Marketing creates interest in the brand and gives the sales team the tools that it needs to inform customers about the product and or service. Attracting prospective customers is marketing’s job but making actual customers is the role of selling.

Harry Beckwith profoundly said, “Prospects do not buy how good you are at what you do. They buy how good you are at who you are.” Nothing rings more true for entrepreneurs. But what role does marketing have in this statement? How can customers know how good you are at who you are?

The answer is that entrepreneurs need to do their marketing “homework,” by telling stories about their brands using:

Statistics

Analytics

Creative strategy

Research findings and;

Content generation

To conclude, entrepreneurs are actually perfectly poised to treat marketing as a “mindset” rather than just a function or department. This is because the majority of start-ups often represent a scenario where the 4 P’s of marketing (product, pricing, promotion and place or distribution) are all handled by the entrepreneur, in octopus-like fashion. Entrepreneurs think of new products, churn out content, devise strategies, handle basic accounting and execute the sales process – all in a day’s work. It may therefore be easier for entrepreneurs to see the “bigger picture,” simply because they’re managing it.

On the flipside, where many fail, is lack of marketing expertise, too much of a focus on their craft/skill and failure to build marketing into their day-to-day operations.

Be present!

AFETT

Simone Sant-Ghuran

AFETT is a not-for-profit organisation formed in 2002 with the goal of bringing together professional women and engaging in networking opportunities, professional training and business ideas. ASK AFETT is a column meant to address issues and concerns of professionals seeking advice to assist in progressing in their careers. Today's response was written by AFETT member, Simone Sant-Ghuran, founder and editor-in-chief – TrinidadWeddings.com. Learn more about AFETT at www.afett.com, search for AFETT Events on Facebook, follow us @AFETTEXECS on Twitter or contact us at 343-2160. Email us your career-related questions at admin.afett@gmail.com.

The views and opinions expressed are those of the authors, meant strictly as advice and guidance, based upon their experience and expertise. In no way are they meant to be legally binding upon AFETT and or its members, servants nor agents.

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"The octopus’ guide to business"

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