The Most Important Thing to Know in Marketing

Marketing is basically a conversation between consumers and business owners. Each day consumers complain, aspire, fear, gloat and worry about different aspects of their lives. Smart marketers simply listen and try to develop products or services that will become a satisfactory response to these consumer "needs". Marketers then use focus groups or product trials to gauge how effective their product-response is as an answer to the original problem statement from the consumer. This back and forth exchange forms the basis of the world economy.

To make this conversation work, marketers must shoulder the responsibility of listening well and responding appropriately. Consumers speak in generalities at the beginning of this conversation with no regard to product, price, price or promotion; the 4 P's of marketing is the marketer's concern. It's a big challenge, and it's at the core are all of marketing's successes or failures.

The original consumer need from the conversation can have a variety of product answers. Bad back? How about an asprin, new bed, new chair, brace, surgery, ace bandage, heat rub, etc. The marketer's work is showing how his product provides the "best" solution.

Let's look at another example: commercial radio. At the beginning of the 20th Century consumers weren't demanding radio, it didn't exist. So what was the general statement that drove the development of commercial radio? There were several including: I'm bored, I'm lonely, I live too far from the city to ever attend a concert, I can only afford entertainment that I can provide myself, etc. There could have been many answers to the consumer need, but commercial radio was outstandingly successful as a product response.

The Most Important Consumer Need Is Always Unmet

Fortunately for marketers, the most important consumer need is always present and never completely satisfied. Consumers spend a large portion of their income attempting to satisfy this need, and yet, it will never be fulfilled by a product or service. The consumer probably knows this, but the consumer is not a rational being.

Consumers continue this conversation every day, eternally optimistic. The consumer statement? "I am not enough. Everyone else seems to be getting more out of life than I am."

This human need drives the overwhelming majority of purchases in the consumer marketplace. It is responsible for purchases of new clothes, fancy cars, huge homes, diet pills, shoes, Rolexs, the list goes on and on. Smart marketers understand that they're not selling a product, but a happier, better future. Even though the purchase does little to change the limitations and realities of life, consumers always believe that the next purchase may actually change their lives.

This marketing conversation is never easy nor direct. But the conversation is what marketing is all about. Marketers are required to listen. If we didn't, how could we ever sell a Lexus?