Question

Some service marketers maintain that marketing for a service organization is fundamentally different for marketing for a firm that sells products. Do you think that simply good marketing is good marketing? If you were a marketing manager for a marketing consultancy, how would you adjust for each target market? Provide at least one real-world example for each (service and product) and explain your thoughts.   

text book:

Kotler, P. T., Keller, K. L. (2016). Marketing Management, 15th Edition

Answer 1

Answer 1:

What makes a marketing effort good or bad is the extent to which it impacts the business results of the company, product or service being marketed.

It’s that simple. Good marketing has a positive effect on business results, and bad marketing has a negative effect or no effect on business results.

Every other measure of a marketing effort’s quality, such as “we reached 3 million people,” “we really stood out from the competition,” and “we built awareness” is a secondary measure that only counts if it eventually leads to business results. It doesn’t matter how many people you reach, or how many people know about you if it doesn’t lead to improving the state of your business.

What this means: Don’t evaluate your marketing by how great the ad creative is, or how flashy the website is, or how clever your Facebook posts are. The only measure of whether your marketing is good or bad is how well it encourages customers to act in ways that improve your business results. If the accounting department comes up with a new payment policy that leads to increased repeat purchases from customers, and the marketing department comes up with a new social media program that doesn’t drive business results, then you need to accept this truth: Your accounting department has done better marketing than your marketing department.

Answer 2:

Nail my Campaign Theme

To nail your campaign theme, you need to work with your content marketing team, and listen carefully on social.

If you do your due diligence and invest time researching and really scoping out a campaign theme, it will be bulletproof.

Start with Goals and Work Backwards

First, set goals, then plan and execute. If you want to run a marathon, you don’t spend all your time in the gym lifting weights (although you might do this as a supplementary activity). You spend most of your time running and building endurance. Pretty simple, but I often see marketers set goals after content production has begun and teams are already starting to execute.

Start with the goal, work backward. If your goal is more focused on brand awareness, you will be focusing on increased impressions, engagement, and web traffic. If your goal is conversions, focus on goal completions, form fills, and MQLs.

Clearly Define Your Target Audience

This takes work. It’s also the difference between a great campaign and a monumental campaign.

Step 1: Know who your buyer is. Leverage your larger marketing buyer personas to help you target efficiently.

Step 2: Define your target audience. A truly integrated global campaign spans personas and has multiple target audiences, depending on the complexity of the campaign. Get as specific as you can here. Use social data to see how they interact, which content they share, which topics they are talking about, and what is important to them.

Step 3: Use this information to tailor your channel and delivery strategy. Don’t focus your campaign on every social channel: make adjustments based on how your target market engages and what they respond well to (content type, CTAs, etc.).

Integrate and Leverage

Use the other smart people in your office. After you put together your campaign theme and know which segments you’re targeting, leverage different departments to achieve your goals. Teamwork makes the dream work.

When you leverage other people in your marketing team, you broaden your perspective. If your campaign is focused on customers, talk to your account managers or customer support team. If your campaign seeks to acquire new customers, chat with your sales team. These teams talk to your personas every day. Use their knowledge to get closer to your target market.

Lastly, share your campaign brief with you entire marketing team. This transparency may be scary at first, but it’s worth it and will make for a better campaign. I share my second rough draft with my entire team–yes, even my VP of Marketing–and allow comments, questions, and suggestions that will make the campaign stronger.

Testing and Ongoing Optimization

Let’s be real: you are not going to (or you shouldn’t) launch a campaign and then leave it alone. You should be quickly analyzing results and making decisions and changes based on those results.

Always let measurement and data dictate your next move. I recommend building different A/B tests into your campaign strategy and timeline. This will allow you to stay agile and make quick, impactful changes. It will also allow you to learn from every campaign, take those learnings, and apply them to the next campaign you launch.

When you figure out what you want to A/B test, make sure you don’t make these common testing mistakes that skew results.

Report or It Didn’t Happen

I wouldn’t be a marketer unless I mentioned reporting. You should be tracking campaign progress on a weekly and monthly basis so you know where you’re at and can make adjustments as needed.

Take your overall campaign goals and break each down into weekly goals. This way you can create a tracker and make sure you are on pace to exceed your goals.