Prospecting for marketing gold

The internet's first personal data collectors were websites and applications. By tracking users' activities online, marketers could deliver targeted advertising and content. More recently, intelligent technology in physical products has allowed companies in many industries to collect new types of information, including users' locations and behaviour. The personalisation this data allows, such as constant adaptation to users' preferences, has become central to the product experience.

The rich new streams of data have also made it possible to tackle complex challenges in fields such as health care, environmental protection, and urban planning... The car service Uber has recently agreed to share ride-pattern data with Boston officials so that the city can improve transportation planning and prioritise road maintenance. These and countless other applications are increasing the power-and value of personal data.

Of course, this flood of data presents enormous opportunities for abuse. Large-scale security breaches, such as the recent theft of the credit card information of 56 million Home Depot customers, expose consumers' vulnerability to malicious agents. But revelations about companies' covert activities also make consumers nervous. Target famously aroused alarm when it was revealed that the retailer used data mining to identify shoppers who were likely to be pregnant - in some cases before they'd told anyone! — Customer Data: Designing for Transparency and Trust; HBR May 2015

Marketing wrap-up

In

previous articles we covered the main points in Marketing — that is, market segmentation, marketing mix, market positioning, and last week — marketing strategy. However, as the experienced practitioner knows, it is all well and good to study the theory of a particular discipline — quite a different matter to excel at your craft!

When you are the marketing manager and you are given the project to revive the product that has been experiencing sagging fortunes and the sales graph shown as a downward pointing arrow for the last couple of periods; or when you have received the enviable task of marketing that brand new product, then you realise that experience in the trenches matter!

Of course, it is necessary to appreciate the tenets and theoretical concepts in marketing, but you also realise that experience and being blessed with ample amounts of creativity are essential to be a successful marketer.

Speaking of being a successful marketer — I believe every organisation that does marketing should want to know what distinguishes the best marketing companies. That is, what are the main things that are done by the companies that have the best marketing machinery?

This is just the question in mind when one of the most comprehensive marketing research (named Marketing 2020) was carried out. The results from this research were documented by Marc de Swaan Arons, Frank van den Driest and Keith Weed in their August 2014

Harvard Business Review article entitled,

The Ultimate Marketing Machine. The research involved over 10,000 marketers and 350 senior executives from 92 countries answering more than 80 questions about the marketing domain.

The results from the research provide a guide for how an organisation can achieve superior marketing performance. I will outline the key findings, but first an important quote that the authors thought was important to note up front — "It's clear that 'marketing' is no longer a discrete entity (and woe to the company whose marketing is still siloed) but now extends throughout the firm, tapping virtually every function. And while the titles, roles, and responsibilities of marketing leaders vary widely among companies and industries, the challenges they face — and what they must do to succeed — are deeply similar."

Below are a selected few of the winning marketing approaches of high-performing organisations:

Leveraging data

Organisations are now awash with customer data, and are now realising that, according to the old western movies, "there's gold in them thar hills!"

That is why in the field of Information Technology, "Big Data" is now one of the "in things"! That is, being able to mine, extract and leverage meaningful information about your customer is now of significant value to the organisation.

According to the authors, "High performers in our study are distinguished by their ability to integrate data on what consumers are doing with knowledge of why they're doing it, which yields new insights into consumers' needs and how to best meet them."

Purposeful positioning

Organisations that excel on their marketing approaches demonstrate this by perfecting the art of positioning their products.

The article outlined the case of Dulux, a leading paint brand that has a global reach. The unified theme developed to market Dulux was that "the colours around us powerfully influence how we feel. Dulux wasn't selling cans of paint; it was selling "tins of optimism". This new definition of Dulux's brand purpose led to a marketing campaign, "Let's Colour''.

Connecting

"Today high-performing marketing leaders don't just align their department's activities with company strategy; they actively engage in creating it. From 2006 to 2013, our surveys show, marketing's influence on strategy development increased by 20 percentage points. And when marketing demonstrates that it is fighting for the same business objectives as its peers, trust and communication strengthen across all functions."

Organising for growth

According to the authors, "Marketing has become too important to be left just to the marketers in a company. We say this not to disparage marketers but to underscore how holistic marketing now is. To deliver a seamless experience, one informed by data and imbued with brand purpose, all employees in the company, from store clerks and phone centre reps to IT specialists and the marketing team itself, must share a common vision."

Dr Kenroy Wedderburn is an MBA part-time lecturer. Send your e-mails to drkwedderburn@gmail.com.

Source: Prospecting for marketing gold