Like
the well used real estate declaration, location, location, location,
marketing people have a philosophy that is like a self fulfilling
prophesy.
I came to marketing from the back door. My career began on the
operations side, managing restaurants and bakeries. Ten hours
a day in front of blazing hot stoves and ovens left no room for
cozy thoughts of marketing. My motto at the bakery was simple,
you sell, and we’ll make it. Simple and tough. No room for fluffy
marketing stuff.
Then, in the mid-1980’s a recession hit. Suddenly it wasn’t quite
so easy to just go sell it. Our competitors had copied many of
the unique products that we had developed. Our award-winning offerings
were being blurred in the minds of the prospects. Many of the
upscale bakery products began to look the same.
How were we going to get and keep our customer’s attention? We
did not. We never developed a Unique Selling Proposition that
kept customers focused on our differences. We lost market share.
Not being the low cost provider, we lost key customers to rivals
who could make products very similar at a much better price. I
ultimately left that company and went on to other opportunities
but I learned the lesson. Marketing would have worked for that
long-forgotten company. I became a believer in the value of marketing.
Marketing is the process of creating a strategic demonstrable
difference and then simply communicating the features, advantages
and benefits of that difference to prospects. Good marketing should
grease the skids for the sales team to open and close. Great marketing
should be so powerful that customers come looking for you.
Does your company have such a
good marketing approach that prospects understand your point of
difference in one sentence? If not, your marketing isn’t working.
Your company has three seconds to present its case to prospects.
Nine-tenth’s of a second in direct mail. At these speeds, you
had better be precise.
Whether we enter a recession now is unclear. What is clear is
that the economy has slowed substantially. Consumer confidence,
that psychological element that keeps consumers spending, has
been shaken. Two-thirds of the US economy comes from consumers.
Does your company have a killer-marketing plan?
We have just left a time in the cheese industry of full production
capacity. When factories are producing at the top end, marketing
seems less important. As the economy throttles back, that will
not be the case. This old production guy thought that gray area
stuff was just fluff. Is your company production driven or market
driven?
The cheese industry is notorious for being production driven.
Many of the great cheese makers I have met just don’t have a clear
understanding of how demand for their product is driven. They
see their world through the eyes of production capacity. “We can
process XX million pounds of milk a week.” With a great economy
and an industry at or near full capacity, this had been enough.
There are three super plants coming on line in California in the
next 18 months. This additional industry capacity coupled with
an economic slowdown could spell problems for less efficient plants
without a strong marketing message. Now is the time to create
or uncover that strategy and develop a Unique Selling Proposition.
Steps
To Develop Your Marketing Plan
- Assemble
the key managers and explain the process and the need for honest
feedback and information.
- Assemble
the key management numbers; sales, costs, profits, capacity
utilization, throughput.
- Assemble
a sales analysis; number of customers, pricing, marketing programs,
pricing to key customers, percentage of profitable sales, key
lost customer list.
- Analyze
your top competitors: honestly list their strengths, weaknesses
and your specific strategy toward each.
- Analyze
your strengths.
- Honestly
evaluate your weaknesses.
- Discuss
your short term, mid and long term problems.
- List
the assumptions you are making.
- Discuss
your critical issues.
- List
your opportunities and rank them.
- Look
at your current marketing plan. What is the current budget?
What is working? Where do you need to improve? Who will you
be targeting? How will you target them? What is the new budget
required in order to accomplish those goals? How will additional
budget be funded? Where can you raise additional funds?
- Develop
critical measuring tools to evaluate results.
- Evaluate
strategic marketing alternatives; advertising, research and
surveys, direct mail, newsletters, recipe contests, point of
sale, new product development, line extensions, strategic marketing
alliances, trade show participation, development of more effective
distributor programs, direct operator programs and new brand
development are alternatives to consider.
- Agree
on decisions and implement.
- Test
and get feedback. Adjust where needed.
A
key to successful marketing is the ability to honestly evaluate
your current position and creatively develop disciplined strategies.
Many companies don’t develop the long-term marketing that they need
because the process is too long and short-term problems persuade
them off the track. Focusing on long-term strategic marketing and
executing the plan well will eliminate many long-term problems.
The food industry in general has been slow to
embrace critical measuring tools for evaluating marketing program
effectiveness. In foodservice, the lack of bar codes and scanners
has withheld the vital sales information necessary to measure
results. Therefore, most evaluations of marketing programs have
been done on gut feel.
You, your department, your company can design
and implement disciplined effective marketing strategies. The
first step is to recognize that marketing is important. Discipline
comes from understanding marketing’s lack of urgency and keeping
it a top priority.