Don’t Forget The Marketing Basics

This should probably be titled don't forget your common sense basics because when you're marketing, I think just stepping back and putting yourself in the customers' shoes goes a long way. There are many ways to market to existing customers and your target market, but I think marketers do themselves a major disservice when they take the human element out of it. This all came about because of an email marketing campaign that I subscribe to. I will not mention the company, but I like their products and do not mind receiving emails, but I have been receiving emails like 2-3 times a week, and it was becoming too much. I do not want to unsubscribe but felt the need to notify the company how I felt on the subject.‍

This brings me back to the topic of this blog. Marketing can be a powerful way to grow a business, but please use discretion, and don't forget to use empathy. I think sometimes companies focus too much on reports and the metrics so if they see when they send out a mass marketing email they see their sales rise, so they reactively keep sending more out to generate more sales. This may be true, but it also can turn off a lot of customers that get emails too frequently but don't want to unsubscribe. Understanding and compiling buying habits can go a long way with your market. It can be a great thing when a company knows how often you buy and what you buy because then it creates value through the understanding of their customers.

I think analytics can be very revealing, but when you market, you need to include the human component and understand your market and why people buy and why they don't. This requires asking "why" to many of the numbers that analytics provided, and as I said before, to step back and think about how it would be if you were the recipient. Marketing should be more than just numbers and a perspective of only increasing them because that is the goal. The big goal is to increase your sales and the number of customers. You also want to understand the dynamics of your market and why they want to be your customer.