❯❯ We certainly do not assume that you have an unlimited budget. You’ll find outlines and ideas for creating programs that you can execute on any budget and ways to engage customers that take price out of the equation for them as well as for you.
Look for these symbols to help you find valuable info throughout the text:
In addition to the great content in the book or e‐book you’re reading right now, you can find more marketing tips and suggestions at www.dummies.com by using the search box to look for “Marketing For Dummies cheat sheet.” These, plus the numerous narrow‐topic books on marketing in the For Dummies line, give you lots of additional options for researching your marketing program.
If you read only one chapter in one business book this year, make it Chapter 2 of this book, which explains the psychology of choice and how to trigger consumers’ unconscious minds for unthinkable ROI. Unless you know what really drives people’s emotions, joys, fears, anticipations, and aspirations, you can’t be effective in building a sustainable business founded on lifelong relationships with valuable customers.
Perhaps you have a pressing need in one of the more specific areas covered in this book. If fixing your website is the top item on your to‐do list, go to Chapter 11 first. If you need to increase the effectiveness of your sales strategies and approaches, try Chapter 16. Working on a direct mail campaign? You’ll discover the role of data and direct channels, such as email and direct mail and how to execute both successfully, in Chapter 10. Chapter 5 will help you build a marketing plan, and Chapter 8 will guide you on using and managing digital tools and tactics that can help you execute campaigns that build sales and profitability.
Whatever you do and whatever your role, this book will provide you with new ways of thinking and doing, all of which are proven to work for businesses, both big and small and B2B and B2C, throughout all industries. So start reading, get going, and let your marketing light shine.
Part 1
Marketing in a Consumer‐Driven World
IN THIS PART.
Fight through consumer distraction, and discover how to market to different generations.
Discover what really drives consumers’ choices, and make use of social influencers.
Determine your market’s growth rate, and then implement market share and positioning strategies.
Chapter 1
Understanding Consumers Today and What Matters Most
IN THIS CHAPTER
❯❯ Fighting through consumer distraction
❯❯ Marketing to different generations
❯❯ Building trust
❯❯ Creating great customer experiences
❯❯ Having fun with guerilla marketing
There’s never been a more exciting time to be in business, especially in marketing. With all the communications channels and technology available today, you can truly learn about and communicate with customers one to one while marketing to millions. You can know with certainty how customers spend their leisure time, what media channels they use and how often they use them, what their interests are, their brand attitudes, shopping patterns, preferences, likes and dislikes, and what their precise value is to you over their lifetime of purchasing. With all this knowledge, you can determine when and what they’re likely to buy, how much and how often, and you can communicate specifically to their needs and relationship with you.
You can also monitor their attitudes, political preferences, and lifestyles on social media and insert your messages into their personal pages and sites when you see an opportunity to influence or inspire them. And you have the ability to analyze past behavior and scientifically predict their future behavior. It gets better all the time.
With the advent of artificial intelligence systems like IBM’s Watson, you can program machines to have conversations with your customers, millions simultaneously and one to one, and learn even more so that you can deliver exactly what they need and want when they want it. And all these communications can happen in real time. Any day. Any time. Limitless possibilities await.
On the flip side: All this technology gives more knowledge and shopping power to customers as well and has changed the game significantly. They don’t have to shop at the local pet store; they can order just about anything online and get it delivered within two days, often free. They want you to communicate and serve them like they’re your only customer, and they’ll abandon you on a whim if they don’t like your values or if you don’t support a cause that’s important to them. People have so many options available today that loyalty is becoming obsolete. Consumers tend to choose brands based on their doing good in the world and the overall experience they offer rather than just the product and price.
As a result, marketers have to change their game. You have to change the way you distribute your products and services, how you reach and communicate with your customers and prospects, and how you engage them emotionally and physically. And you have to offer much more than a great product and value point; you have to offer consumers a fulfilling experience that adds value, happiness, or excitement to their lives.
This book is about doing all the above, effectively and affordably, for any business in either the B2C or B2B space, local or regional, national or global in scope. It’s also for entrepreneurs starting a new business or marketing managers wanting to have a big impact on their job and their careers.
Beyond going through the essentials of building marketing plans, growth strategies, distribution channels, and pricing and merchandising strategies, this book guides you on developing emotionally relevant, creative experiences, websites, and online and offline promotions and marketing campaigns. You’ll also discover the essentials of selling for a lifetime to capture lifetime value and loyalty in a world where both are hard to come by. And in Part 6, you find out how to measure your marketing in ways that can give you deep insights on how to grow your brand much more than just your traditional ROI and response analytics.
Before we get into the how‐tos and guidelines for doing all the above, you need to focus on the mindset and behaviors of today’s customers and this new era of consumerism. You need to understand what distractions you must overcome, generational influences that make or break brand relationships, consumers’ level of trust