Broaden Your Marketing Knowledge

Not only for most of the starting entrepreneurs, but also for many veterans in business, marketing and sales, marketing and paper ad, marketing and follow-up phone calls are not different. But it is not limited to that. It includes contextual dynamics of business, market, people, beliefs, and values. All kinds of marketing starts with identifying the right target audience.

Life cycle of marketing starts from the first link from the defined target audience. The marketing cycle continues from the form of knowing about you, your business or your product or service may be through word of mouth, brochure, information in your web site, then online real-time live chat with the available live person, convincing to buy your product or service and way beyond that until you make the customer, your loyal customer and ultimately converting the customer as your partner.

Theodore Levitt, the famous Harvard marketing professor, said "The marketing process consists of a tightly integrated effort to discover, create, arouse, and satisfy customer needs."

I am fan of Seth Godin. I recently completed his a "must-read" book "Permission Marketing : Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers". Seth Godin refers to the marketing process as one of converting strangers into friends and friends into customers. I would like to go a step further on both ends of the marketing frame he presents. The marketing process should not start with generic strangers but with "Needy strangers" - people who are willing to to buy what you are offering. Convert these needy strangers first into friends, then into customers.

But don't stop there. Ultimately, you want to convert these customers into partners. If you have not read the following books from Seth Godin, grab those today. Those books changed my perception of marketing completely and made me ready for today's world. I would recommend the bestselling marketing book of the decade - "Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable", "All Marketers Are Liars: The Power of Telling Authentic Stories in a Low-Trust World", "Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking" and his latest - "The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick)."

As an entrepreneur and consultant/trainer on service marketing, I have discovered some principles without knowing that there was a scientific basis for why they work. As a gift in my birthday last year, one of my clients sent me an excellent book by Robert Cialdini "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Collins Business Essentials)". I was enlightened! Cialdini gives detailed scientific proof explaining why certain marketing principles that have been practiced for years always seem to work. With this information, a marketer can design powerful marketing programs to take advantage of innate human tendencies.

When I finished reading Cialdini's book, I was astonished. While you're shopping on the Internet for one of the best books in marketing, you should also put into your shopping basket a copy of Cialdini's book. It is excellent. He details his six principles of persuasion: reciprocation, commitment and consistency, social proof, liking, authority and scarcity. I have tried several of those in my marketing campaigns, why don't you try yourself!

I will write about Cialdini's six principles in one of my future posts. Keep watching.

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