marketing plan - The Pedestal Group

Are You In a Known Industry?

This is part six in our series on how to start thinking about marketing. To see our previous articles, check out:

Product or Service
Strong Company Brand
Strong Personal Brand
Established or Create the need
Long or Short Sales Cycle

The next item to review in determining your marketing plan is if you are in a known industry or not. For example, if someone says they do carpet cleaning, we all know what that means. But, if someone says they are the foremost expert in biophysics, there’s a good chance only a few people know what that individual does on a daily basis. It is important to understand that not everyone knows what you do every day. And even if people think they know an industry, they may not truly understand what you do.

One industry that is interesting from this perspective is recruiting. Recruiters are definitely misunderstood. Many people haven’t dealt with recruiters and therefore don’t have any idea what they actually do – they call them “head hunters” and generally assume the candidate pays them to find them a job. This is absolutely the opposite of most recruiting offices. Generally they are hired by the client to find a specific person and then have to employ many ways to find that perfect individual. So in a case like this, a recruiter has a unique challenge to design a marketing plan as they not only have to get their personal message out there, but also educate the prospect on what they do. Several industries share this challenge and Chiropractors are the first to come to mind.

On the other hand, there are industries that people don’t know exist. We all understand the insurance industry but how many people have heard of long-term care insurance? This isn’t like life or car insurance of which we all have a basic understanding. This is insurance that provides for a time when we can’t take care of ourselves. Not exactly something the average person wants to consider. So the marketing plan to get the word out on that product is even more challenging as you have to educate, and then get over the concerns and emotional issues of the subject.

In a known industry, one must differentiate. Going back to our carpet cleaning example, if someone comes to your home or office to clean your carpets, you have a set of expectations. Some are built on past experience and some based on the results you desire. As a carpet cleaner, you have to get the client to understand why you are the best, and may not be the cheapest. That is a very different message.

So it is important to know if people you are selling to have an understanding of your industry, have an incorrect understanding of your industry, or if they have no understanding. In each case, the message must be delivered to deal with that situation appropriately and effectively.

Strong Company Brands

Service or Product – Getting Started

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This will be the first post in a series of how I get started with a client. These questions help clients understand where they should target their marketing efforts.

Are you a product or a service company? Seems like a no-brainer. You either sell products or you provide a service. Duh. But how one markets a company depends on the answer to this question. Marketing a service is often marketing the intangible. You canâ€™t touch a service, hold a service, look at it and judge it the way you can a product. That isnâ€™t to say that marketing a product is easy, though. The product has to be in its best light and look as good as possible because a consumer will make a judgment just from a quick glance. So when designing your marketing plan, this is the first variable we consider.

Product Company
The first thing we identify with a product company is what features are obvious in the product (colors, textures, what the main purpose or function is, etc.) and what features are not obvious (other uses, features that arenâ€™t used as often, etc.). This is so important because when communicating, you donâ€™t want to assume anything. Just because a feature is obvious to the manufacturer doesnâ€™t mean it is obvious to everyone. I once attended a Pampered Chef party and the person brought their pizza stone out of the oven using the oven rack that came with us. There were two of us in the room who had no idea that was what that was for and had been using it as a cooling stand. The designers at Pampered Chef would have been surprised!!! The lesser known features are just as important. I recently read an article where a woman mentioned that at 50-something, she had just learned there were tabs on the sides of her plastic wrap box to hold the roll in the box. Neither my mother nor myself knew this one either and boy, is that a help! If my brand didnâ€™t have it, I would definitely have tried a different brand as it eliminates a lot of the frustration with handling plastic wrap. This kind of feature can help tip the balance between one brand and another if the customer feels they are identical.

Service Company
With a service company, we have to understand what the service is, why it is important, and why it is provided in the way that it is. The last thing a service company wants to do is set the wrong expectation for what will happen once a customer signs up. If Iâ€™m having my car serviced and Iâ€™m told part of the service is to get a ride back to the shop, I better get a call before 6:00 saying they are on their way to pick me up. (FYI â€“ my service provider actually picked me up in MY car so I could test out the repair with a tech in the car with me. Nice.) Next, weâ€™re going to have a long talk about what customers WANT and EXPECT. And if necessary, weâ€™re also going to talk to customers to make sure that is what they want and expect.

If you are both a service and product company, you will want to look at each side separately and blend the marketing approaches at the end. The idea here is to get a handle on what you sell at the very beginning. Later this week we will discuss Strong Company Brand vs. Strong Personal Brand.