My Boss Punched Me in the Face…

(or "How I learned the difference between Sales and Marketing")

[The following blog was written by a client of mine in direct response to last Friday's blog: Please Punch Me in the Face.  This is unedited.  See the comments section for my further remarks.]

I was ready.  I had memorized the research. Crunched the numbers.  Crunched ‘em again.  I had a “bulletproof” product marketing proposal. 

I was a young Product Manager working in the Marketing Department of a large, publicly-traded Company in a dynamic, high-growth industry.  My product line’s growth had slowed in one of our regions and we were losing share to a competitor.  This couldn’t continue.  Not on my watch.  I put on my best navy suit and power tie and was “armed to the teeth” when I scheduled the meeting where I would present my brilliant plan to my boss, who was the Corporate Officer responsible for Marketing.  I was barely 5 minutes into my presentation and I’d just finished the “Situation Analysis” part of the plan and I was ready to “hit” him with a one-two punch of revised (i.e., reduced) pricing and increased promotion.  You see, I am a classically trained marketer who grew up believing in the “Four P’s of Marketing [Product, Price, Promotion and Place] and every good plan had to focus on one or all of those areas.  My boss interrupted me and said…

“It sounds to me like you’re trying to solve sales problems with marketing solutions”.

 Gulp.  Suddenly there was less air in the room and I was having trouble breathing.  I felt like I’d been punched in the face… 

After he took me back through the situational analysis and reminded me of a valuable difference between our product that our competitor didn’t have and couldn’t easily match.  So, our competitor had simply changed tactics and we were getting “outsold”. 

We discussed a few different options that involved additional sales training, increased sales activity and more accountable sales management. 

60 days later and the story changed.  Our losses subsided and we were back on track with our growth plan.  All of that with no changes to the Product, Price or Promotion components of the marketing mix.  We simply changed the way we handled the Place (i.e., Sales, or where the “rubber meets the road”, as Sarah mentioned).

In the interest of full disclosure, my example featured a direct sales channel where the Marketing Department could physically (or virtually) communicate directly with the people who delivered our “Product” to the “Market”.  I realize this isn’t always the case with an indirect or online sales channel and additional pieces of the marketing mix have to be considered. 

Here’s how I see it:

1.       Start with the 4 P’s of Marketing:  Product, Price, Promotion and finally, Place.
2.       The first 3 P’s (Product, Price and Promotion) are traditionally known as marketing functions.    Clearly, there are significant differences between each of these areas. 
3.       The last P is the “engine” that drives the growth you’re looking for in your Marketing plan.  Think of Marketing as the car and Sales as the engine.  Even the best designed, hottest looking car won’t go anywhere without an engine.  
4.       You can have a “drop dead” Marketing Plan and if your distribution channel(s) don’t line up with your target market or if your salespeople aren’t as effective as they could or should be, then you won’t see the difference you’re looking for in your marketing plan. 
5.       Try to sharpen/improve the sales function before making any significant changes in product, price or promotion.  Remember, nothing sells like lower prices and it takes very little skill to spend more money to “outshout” your competitor.  This can be a “slippery slope” on the race to the bottom. 

I (mostly) view Sales and Marketing and different functions. 

However, I’ve seen Sales and Marketing integrated and used interchangeably most often in independent, mostly entrepreneurial professional services.  Think about it:   if you, your experience, knowledge and capabilities ARE the product and you set/negotiate the price and you promote yourself and your work online and offline, then you’re definitely engaged in the sales process in every step. 

Remember:  nothing happens until (or unless) somebody sells something.

-Randy B.

How to Plan Advertising Placement

When putting together an advertising or promotion campaign, one of the major decisions before you is how to get your message out. The options for promoting your message are many: traditional media (tv, radio, print), online advertising, social media, direct mail, sales promotions, sponsorships, public relations, events and trade shows, merchandising, and actual sales efforts. Enough choices to make you cross eyed. And broke.

Small businesses tend to focus on traditional mass media because it’s what we as individuals know best. We think: people still talk about last year’s Super Bowl commercials and nobody even remembers the direct mail piece they received yesterday, so TV must be king.

The trouble is that mass=money, so most businesses either opt to do nothing or opt to take out a second on their house, neither of which are good—or necessary—options.

The key is to figure out with whom you are hoping to communicate, and then determine the best way to start a conversation with them.

If you’re McDonald’s and your market is, say, 90% of the population and you need to make several thousand sales per minute, then mass advertising, like a run-of-network TV campaign across the entire US, is spot on (no pun intended!).

But say your prospects are people in Northeast Louisiana with a liquid net worth of $250,000 or more. That list quickly boils down to about 5,000 households. Then let’s say you really only want to do business with people in Ruston, LA. Now you’re talking about 750 households. Still a decent sized prospect pool, but say you only really need to gain one new customers per week out of that pool. Now we’re definitely not going to be able to justify the price of TV, even on the local networks.

Depending on the product/service being sold in the above scenario I’d mostly likely recommend personal (direct) selling, but let’s say that’s not possible for some reason (or maybe you HATE direct sales as much as most every breathing human out there does). Then I’d probably recommend direct mail (DM).

I love DM because of how well you can target it. Still, the typical response rate on most DM is something like 2%. But, if you mix it up and add well placed outdoor or radio advertising to a three-piece DM campaign, then you might be able to ramp up the response rate. Season in a little social media for brand recognition and we might be talking a great campaign.

Ok, so, I can go on and on with examples. Frankly, sometimes you need a chainsaw and other times you can use a scalpel. The concept I’m trying to hammer into your head is that not every channel works for every situation. The right channel depends on your target market and your goal.

Putting a little effort into defining your “who” and “what” will make figuring out the “how” much easier (and probably more economical to boot!).

~Sarah, Emogen marketer

Shhh... It's the Secret Marketing Recipe

The AMA approved definition of marketing is “the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”

Wait, what was that? I fell asleep.

The more concise Merriam-Webster version is “the act or process of selling or purchasing in a market.”

The rest of us would say it’s “selling something.” And I think it’s safe to say that everyone pretty much gets that concept. It’s almost as if making money is the survival instinct of the 21st century. But when push comes to shove, how does one actually market. And, more importantly, is there some secret recipe for how to reap the most profit possible from your marketing?

Believe it or not, there really is a term for the secret marketing recipe: marketing mix.

In yesterday’s blog I discussed marketing mix in terms of utilizing a variety of media to communicate a brand; however, the phrase has a much larger reach and refers to what is commonly called the Four Ps of Marketing: Product, Price, Place and Promotion.

The Fours Ps came about in the 50s or 60s as a way to classify the elements of the marketing mix. Think of them as the ingredients for the marketing recipe.

Product refers to what’s being sold (a service would also fit into this category). Price is how much the product is sold for. Place is how it will get into the hands of the end user. And, finally, promotion is how details about the product are communicated to customers.

The 4Ps are simple concepts, I know. Unfortunately, there's no secret recipe for combining them. Each business is unique, and the 4Ps are all moving parts that directly and indirectly impact one another in countless ways.

In order to maximize the bottom line, you must know what to move and when to move it. So, much like gourmet cooking, great marketing is a balance of science and art... a talent partly learned (science) and partly God-given (art).

-Sarah, Emogen marketer