The six marketing imperatives

There are six marketing imperatives that drive, or should drive, small businesses today. These imperatives are:

1. No matter what business you think you’re in, sooner or later you’re also a marketing organization.

2. As an essentially marketing organization, it follows that marketing becomes its most important business activity.

3. What’s more, as a marketer today you are facing competition, other organizations are marketing to the same customers or prospects as you, at an unprecedented level.

4. Because the small organization cannot hope to compete on price or selection, marketing becomes the only way for the small organization to effectively differentiate itself in the marketplace.

5. Marketing is everything you do as an organization that touches your customer in some way; Marketing is a very big umbrella.

6. Finally, the market itself is in charge; he, and he alone, determines the success or failure of your marketing effort.

Among my Webster’s New Collegiate definitions of imperative are “have power to restrain, control, and direct” and “not be shunned or evaded.” In other words, imperatives are things you must do. Let me briefly explain each of the six marketing imperatives.

First of all, no matter what business you think you’re in, sooner or later you’re a marketing organization. If you are a traditional business offering a product or service in a local or global market, you are trying to market something to someone. Therefore, it is also a marketing organization.

Second, if this is true, that in addition to anything else you can do as an organization, you are also a marketing organization, then it inevitably follows that marketing becomes the most important thing you can do as a small business, as a non-commercial company. profit organization, such as a group of volunteers. Period.

That’s a bold statement that I’m sure will raise more than one eyebrow, especially among bankers, lawyers, and accountants. They might argue, for example, that an organization cannot survive without a regular supply of cash, provided by loans and/or letters of credit. They might suggest that an organization has to protect itself against breaches of contract and/or lawsuits, which is the job of a lawyer. They might argue that an organization needs to track its income and expenses in order to prosper (not to mention stay out of trouble with the IRS), which is what accountants do.

But, I would say that while all of those activities are important and certainly require diligent attention, they are essentially meaningless without paying customers coming through the door; because it is the paying customers that provide the livelihood of a business. What is marketing supposed to do and what is, therefore, why marketing should be an organization’s driving force, its sole focus.

Which brings us to the third imperative: In today’s Internet-driven, global economy dominated by retail behemoths, all organizations of any kind face competition on an unprecedented level.

Small businesses certainly can’t compete on price. Wal-Mart, Home Depot, OfficeMax, and other so-called category killers, by exercising their bargaining power, can quite often offer an item at retail for what most small businesses would pay for it at wholesale. These 800-pound retail bouncers can fill your 100,000-plus-square-foot large boxes with tens of thousands of items, offering your customers an overwhelming selection—whatever you need, we’ve got it, usually in various sizes and colors. The last thing a small business should want or even contemplate doing is competing with these people on price or selection; that’s a dead end scenario if ever there was one.

Finally, thanks to its ability to reach anyone, anywhere, anytime, the Internet has virtually negated any location/convenience advantage a local small business or organization might have had.

Marketing is the way a company presents itself in the market. So it brings us to marketing imperative number four: marketing itself more effectively—whatever that means—is not only the best way, it’s the only way left for companies. small organizations to compete successfully.

The fifth marketing imperative answers the question that naturally follows: If you are a marketing organization, and if marketing is your most important activity, then what is marketing? I offer this definition: Marketing is a very big umbrella, it’s everything you do as an organization that touches your customer, contributor or member in some way.

A common misconception is that marketing is synonymous with advertising and promotion or is the same as sales. In many organizations what is called the Marketing Department is essentially the Sales Department.

But, like a big umbrella, marketing covers much more territory. For example, how you answer the phone is a marketing decision, or should be. What are the hours you are open and how many people do you decide to staff your business with. Of course, how you decorate your business is a marketing decision, as is whether you have a logo and how consistent you use it across various promotional mediums. Whether you use telemarketing or direct mail or the Internet or personal sales calls (or some combination of these) to engage with your customers is definitely a marketing decision. Regardless of how easy or difficult it is to fill out the required forms you may use, who determines what goes on the form, your customer service and/or sales staff, or the IT staff that processes the information? — is very much a decision with marketing implications. The issues, causes, or groups your organization sponsors have marketing implications, as do the articles you’re trying to get the media to write about you.

Furthermore, I would suggest that many small organizations, perhaps most, tend to view these functions only from a cost accounting or management perspective, rarely if ever viewing them as crucial marketing decisions. They should.

The sixth and final imperative is both blindingly obvious and yet almost always overlooked or taken for granted: the market always prevails, it is the final arbiter of your success or failure as a marketing organization. What I’m suggesting here is that despite all our best efforts to plan and control our marketing efforts—and as marketers we spend a great deal of time and resources planning and controlling—it’s really the market that is at stake. check. Time and time again, major marketing corporations have launched a product with a well-planned and well-funded marketing effort, only for the product to be greeted by the market with a huge collective yawn. On the other hand, time and time again I have worked with small businesses that opened their doors expecting to offer certain products or services, only to have the market tell them that, in fact, they wanted other products or services. Acknowledging this imperative is certainly not meant to excuse marketers from the need to conduct research and develop thoughtful plans. Rather, it is meant to suggest that the smart seller understands this imperative and will pay attention, rather than struggle with what the market may be telling him.

Perhaps in some semi-mythical and happy past, marketing for a small business may have been an “when we get to it” option, but no more. In today’s market, trade aggressively, trade smart and trade always, or die.