Recently, a Venture Capital intern asked me to explain marketing to him at the end of our two-hour interview. While I have spent more than 40 years working on hundreds of successful marketing campaigns for almost as many brands, and while I could spend days talking about the nuances of marketing research, brand strategy, brand architecture, PR, pricing strategy, distribution strategy, digital marketing, marketing automation, package design, retail merchandising, etc. – I believe in simplicity. So, I explained the essence of marketing to him in less than one minute, which can be articulated in one paragraph. This is what I said…
The first step in marketing is being able to completely put yourself in the customer’s shoes. What are her hopes, fears, beliefs, attitudes, values and behaviors? What are her pain points? What does she need and what does she desire? What problems is she trying to solve? Then you must craft a product/service solution that uniquely meets those needs and then articulate that unique value proposition as simply and powerfully as possible. Your brand’s unique value proposition must be presented to her in as many ways as possible as often as possible to build her awareness of and emotional connection to your brand. And finally, you need to possess common sense to say and do the right things at the right times to move her from brand awareness to brand purchase and then ultimately brand loyalty and even brand advocacy.
It’s as simple as that. All of the rest of marketing is just tactics, which can be taught.
