Art of Marketing

Introduce

Become the person who would attract the results you seek. — Jim Cathcart

The main reason for the success or failure of a business is determined

by the ups and downs of marketing efforts.

According to Dun & Bradstreet,

48% of business failures are the result of inertia

or inefficiencies in marketing or sales.

In today’s dynamic competitive economy,

marketing is at the core of every successful business.

No matter what industry you are in,

you still need marketing.

In this practical and informative book on marketing,

readers will come across 21 key ideas and plenty of side ideas

that can be leveraged to improve your marketing strategy

– get started now.

Strategic marketing is the art

and science of identifying the tastes and needs of current

and future customers and helping them satisfy them

by creating and structuring your products and services,

so that they bring satisfaction to customers.

The purpose of strategic marketing is

to encourage you to sell more of the services

and products you are offering

at a higher price in an expanding geographic area

and to gain leadership,

stability,

and strength on the market.

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The most important rule

The starting point of successful marketing is

that you always have to remember that the customer is always right.

They buy for their own reasons,

not yours.

Customers are selfish,

demanding,

ruthless,

disloyal,

and fickle.

But they are always right based on their individual needs,

they wants and their ways of thinking.

Customers will change providers whenever

they feel they will be better served somewhere else.

Your ability to meet their real needs,

satisfy their wants,

is a major determinant of your success in business.

Marketing is a skill set that can and must be learned

by keeping certain ideas and concepts in mind,

and by asking certain key questions regularly.

If you take the time to think through the answers

to the questions in this book,

you will sharpen your marketing skills dramatically.

The most important part of this book is what you do then.

Your specific actions,

and the speed at which each action is taken,

are the factors that determine the full value of this book to you.

When you read or consider an action

you can take to improve your marketing skills,

act immediately,

don’t hesitate.

Develop a sense of urgency and a bias for action.

Those are the key qualities of every great entrepreneur.

Everything in life is a sale

and everything you want is a commission. ― Grant Cardone

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Chapter 01. Purpose of business activities

A lot of people think that the purpose of a business

is simply to make a profit.

However, as Peter Drucker explains,

its real purpose is “to bring in and keep customers”.

Every effort of a successful business

is aimed at bringing in customers in some way.

Profit is the result of cost-effectively acquiring

and retaining customers over time.

Initial customer acquisition costs are very high.

The cost to retain them is much lower

than the cost of attracting them in the early stages.

If you observe the companies

with the most effective marketing,

you will realize that their strategies are all about attracting customers

and keeping them.

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Quality is a marketing strategy

Perhaps the most profitable marketing strategy is to elevate the quality

of your product or service.

Quality is one of the most effective

and powerful marketing strategies.

Up to 90% of the success of your business is determined

by the quality of the product

or service you initially offer.

People will always buy from reputable suppliers,

are willing to pay higher prices,

and will always return to the company

that has provided them with high-quality products and services.

What is quality?

This topic has been discussed and debated for many years.

Philip Crosby, founder of Quality College,

has said that “quality is the degree to which your product

or service does what you say it will perform

when you sell it and continues to guarantee it. that’s effective.”

Perhaps the best definition of a brand,

or your reputation in the marketplace,

is “the fact that you make promises and keep them.”

Your evaluation of quality is determined

by the percentage of time your product

or service works based on the promise

you made to attract the initial customer.

The second fundamental strategy related to successful marketing

is service quality.

According to PIMS (Profit Impact for Marketing Strategy),

a study conducted over many years by Harvard University,

the quality of a product lies in two factors:

the product itself,

and how the product is sold or served.

Not only the product itself,

but also the way you serve customers from the moment

you first contact them to the time they use your products

and services is the key to the success of your business. 

People will always return to a supplier of quality goods and services,

no matter what price they pay.

I want a million dollars in my happy account

and a million in my bank account. — Jim Rohn

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How do they feel about you?

Another factor that plays a very important role in the success

of a marketing strategy is relationships.

Today, we have to recognize that the quality of our business relationships

is what determines whether

we attract and retain a certain number of customers.

At one point I asked my audience,

“What percentage of human decisions are emotions and reason?”

After they gave a few answers,

I told them,

“People often rely entirely on emotions to make decisions.”

They decide emotionally,

then rationally justify it.

Their feelings and especially their feelings

after a purchase is the deciding factor in their purchase of anything.

Jan Carlzon,

the former general manager of SAS Airlines

who turned SAS into one of the most profitable companies in Europe,

wrote a book about his experiences called Moments of Truth:

Decisive moments).

In this fascinating book,

he shows that every customer contact is an influential “moment”

and can largely determine whether

that customer will stay with you or not.

Because the cost of satisfying an existing customer accounts

for about one-tenth of the costs of marketing,

advertising, promoting,

and selling to a new customer,

companies can attract and retain customers

by caring for them are always the fastest growing

and most profitable organizations.

Success is something you attract by the person you become. — Jim Rohn

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Buy customers

Each company is operating in the field of “find customers.”

Every company has a “specific acquisition cost”.

This is perhaps the single most important expense

in the success of any business.

Your acquisition costs include any money you pay anyone,

in any way, to acquire a first-time customer.

A company will survive if it can buy a customer at a cost less

than the net profit that customer would bring

to the company during their purchase.

Whenever you read about companies that have millions

or even billions of dollars in revenue,

but still lose money,

you’re seeing an example of the old saying:

“We lose on every sale,

but hopefully make up for it in numbers.”

When companies lose money,

it is mainly because the acquisition cost of acquiring a customer is higher

than the total profit that

the customer makes goods bring to the company.

If your company can acquire a customer

for less than the profit you can make from that customer,

you can spend almost any money buying more and more customers.

This is one of the biggest secrets of business success

and it is a core requirement for effective marketing.

If you don’t give up on something you truly believe in,

you will find a way. — Roy T. Bennett