Book Review/Summary: How to become a marketing superstar -Concluded

Questions to Answer : Answer the following questions about the product on

-Market Segmentation

-advertising

-positioning

Product

-Why was it made?

-What is the raison d'etere for the product?

- What is your reasoning for selling it?

- Where can it be used?

Customer

Why does she buy it?

What need does it solve for her?

Selling strategy

-What benefit does it solve?

-Ask 'So what' for each benefit.(Derive benefits from features)

Quantitative:

How will the customer situation be improved?

Competition

What is customer using now? Why?

What are the disadvantages with the with current product?

How does your product compare with theirs?

How do you price to value?

Can you dollarize the returns on the product?

Who else is using product? Get details

What evidence have you got on product claims?

You must answer these questions. If you don't know the answers, find them.

Completely, objectively and correctly answer:

Why do customers buy your offering? Why do some choose otherwise?

Why do they buy from the competition?

What will it take for you/your competitor to get all the business?

Who are your customers' best suppliers? Why?

The answers can be hard to hear. Do not depend on the sales people to deliver honest answers.

Do not run from bad or unpleasant answers.

Get the answers from new or potential customers.

Compete for 'inches'.

Fight for every share.

Make one more call per week. Return every call. Send more ads to magazines. Never let up. Do not let victory be an inch away.

What can you do to reduce complaints, increase costs.

Archive and resurrect past promotions.

If it resonates with customers, reuse it.

Do not get strategy amnesia.

Old products and customers may mean new opportunities.

Repolish the silver.

Always sell inside first.

People are resistant to change. Sell to them and take away doubt.

You must convince them to do something new, different or do not want to do.

Resistance to new ways may be legitimate or imaginary. Some honest people may need new ideas.

Make presentations to get more acceptance.

Don't let perfect be the enemy of better.

If you are a little better than the competition, sell your product now.

Own a market, not a mill.

Factories or mills do not sell things.

Markets are the source of revenues.

Mills take money. Markets will make it.

Mills are hard to move.

Markets are fast to respond.

Markets make mills. Mills make what markets want.

Loss leaders are for loosers.

These are products that sell for a loss. The hypothesis is that the customer will buy another product instead of a loss leader. It is an excuse.

The larger the rebate, the more the customers who will collect it.

Never run a 3 page spread ad.

It is burning money.

It costs as much to run good advertising as it does to bad advertising

Shrink to Grow.

Shrinking sales can spur growth. Shrink the territory to grow.

Shrink market segments into new niches.

Throw appeals at the customer seeking to overwhelm.

Never let up. Always communicate, sell.

Dominate the customer's consciousness.

Your competition is lurking around you. Be aware of this. Do not underestimate the competition. Keep customers happy all the time. They are your first line of defence against the competition.

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Book Review/Summary: How to become a marketing superstar -II

•  Advertise and sell with figures, not adjectives(less, more, economical).-Use facts and data
  
• Get samples of all advertising tools used now- Everything a customer might see- Are they consistent? This fosters brand awareness.
• You should change. Once you change, change everything to reflect that change.
• Be a customer of yourself- Read the advertising- Is it clear. Call the 800 number- How is the customer service?

-Read customer complaints.
-Read your billboards on the move
-Fill warranty claims
-Return the product

• Fix or improve the issues you face.
• Banish all buying barriers: Do not torment your customer with warnings.

-Review and revamp your policies.

-Have enough change as possible in the register.

• Fast 15 Rules

-Teaser ads are worthless. Get to the point

-Coming soon ads are announcements. They are OK

-Channels are not customers

-Know the products that sell

-There is a cost to cost cutting.

-Selling is God, not the sales force.

-Ads that don't sell are a waste of money

- The end of a sales transaction is most memorable to a customer.

- Get the customer to invest in the sales process.

- Have a quantifiable selling options

- Remember customer names 

• Superstars favor recessions

-This is a time to get new customers

-Hire new talent

-Get rid of under-performers

-Partner with customers to launch products.

-Be relentless.

-Adopt a 'thrival' attitude.

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Book Review/Summary: How to become a marketing superstar -I

One of the few drawbacks of the SDM program at MIT, that I was lucky enough to graduate from, is that we do not have a course in Marketing. So here is one of the books I recommend to
to fill this void.

Jeffrey Fox's book, How to become a marketing superstar has a concise and clear marketing message.
Here are my notes from th book:

The old notion that 50% of advertising is wasted and that no one knows which 50% is a myth.The effectiveness of advertising and marketing is measurable.

• Getting and keeping customers is everyone' job, regardless of title or job description.
• 'The definition of marketing is simple, the doing or marketing is hard.'
• Successful companies do what the top guys do. They sell,sell, sell.
• All money in an organization is 'customer money'.
• Customers fire employees everyday.
• Each employee and department must generate more than they consume. Otherwise, they will be eliminated.
• Divide your customers into OK and not OK. Infact there are four groups: Sophisticated OK, sophisticated not OK, unsophisticated OK and unsophisticated not OK. This is subjective division from the marketer's
  
• Sophisticated OK: Big companies, low margins
• Sophisticated not OK: A big risk, can cause employee burnout
• Unsophisticated OK: Low Margins, They may bear the price for training, extras
  
• Unsophisticated not OK: Avoid this entirely
• Then decide on selling, service,billing plans
• Love the OK customers.
• The customer is not always right. The right customer is always right. She is profitable, pays her bills and pays for what she buys. They can be fair, tough, needy, insistent or give good referrals if they satisfy the OK rule
• The bad customer is not OK. They may not be profitable.
• The seven growth levers:
• Innovate
• Add new end customers in new markets, new geographies
• Sell new applications of existing products to existing customers
• Identify and reduce customer attrition
• Raise prizes.
• Pray for market demand
• Acquire companies
• Delegate people or resources to these levers.
• Have a growth notebook. Test and execute ideas
• Love you brand. Believe and understand your brand. Protect your brand from misuse.
  
• Live the brand.
• Managing the brand is different. This is minding, managing and administrating and can take your brand downhill.
• Hating your brand can spell its doom.
• Dollarization: The calculation of the value of a product. It is not abstract. It is a number. Value proposition, value chain are meaningless without dollarization.
• Dollarization must be based on:
• Go/no go on products.
• Market segmentation
• Product positioning
• Setting price to value
• Let customers understand the payback and the ROI on the product.
• Superstars sell within to suppliers, distributes, colleagues, advertisers
  
• They are polite, persistent, honest.
• They work long and hard.
• Price to value
• Customers do not buy products. They buy value based on need,
• Price based on the value received from the customer, not your production costs.
• Do not mirror your competitor pricing.
• Target gross market pricing, a common approach is not the right strategy though competition can force it sometime.
• Pricing requires customer knowledge, dollarization value and courage.
• Price cutting causes price wars. They kill or maim you and the competition.
• Improving price increases operating income.
• Compete on product quality, store location and employee attitude, not on price.
• Always tell you customer the consequences to not buying your product. It is a great motivator to buy. This is more effective than telling the customer what he will save.
  
• Derived Demand: Unlike direct demand, the product is a component of another product that is used for resale.
  
• Direct demand can be enhanced by advertising. The number of consumers determine the effectiveness of direct demand.
• When a derived demand customer cuts price, they do not influence the customer and have thus made a bad decision.
• Supermarketer must-knows:
• Having a customer
• Customers buy to gain pleasure and avoid pain
• People buy value, not products
• Dollarize value and benefits
• Who, what and why
• Group the customers as aware users, aware non users and unawares,
• Quality, directing R&N and sales are marketing responsibilities
• Train sales force to pre-plan, ask questions and to respond to questions.
• On all sales calls, ask for an order.
• Execution, execution and execution.
• Brandnames are intellectual assets
• Every product is branded. Use customer tested brandnames.
  
• Technology does not sell itself. Marketing does.
• Brandnames:
  
• Must be developed. Do not use company jargons or internal numbers.
• Do not use the product category or initials as brandnames.
• Brandnaming is not a popularity contest.
• Brandnames on product characteristics is good.
• They do not have to have meaning
• Brandnames must be memorable, easy to pronounce.
• Wrong words can use trigger negative feelings or distaste or confusing.
• A good brandname cannot sell a product.
• Always put a brandname in the headline. It is the hero.
• Turn brandnames into stars.
• Never use I,me, we, us, our. Customers care only about themselves, not you.
• Build brand awareness. Not 'we' awareness.
• Articulate the difference. For this, you must research the product. Use numbers and facts.
• Never use bad words in advertising and selling:
  
• We,me, I, us, Our,- Use the company name
  
• Solutions- State the solution
• Quality - This is defined by the customer
• It- State what 'it' is.
• Technology- There is no high tech, only old and new.
• Lifetime
  
• Source- State the source.
• Difference

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