Marketing is easy; We understand our customer, craft a good story and wax poetic about why to buy. And then like Emeril says, “Bam!” …there’s my sales. Done and done.
That’s how it’s done kids, lesson one is O-V-E-R, Over. Over and out.
Still, marketing mistakes can come from not understanding your customer. And since customers are people, they can be complex and challenging beings. (Except for me, naturally. I’m not challenging, I am perfect).
Now I’ll do what marketers do best, and tell ya two lil’ stories (one from my experience, and one currently in the press), where you’ll see how understanding your customer is the keystone of all marketing. Yes, that’s a big statement, and I said it. (Wanna step outside?)
Story 1: From my experience
I was an ecommerce manager when I chose our best seller for the main hero image for the homepage of the site I was running at the time.
How could that be wrong? Simple marketing, right? Common sense, right? I sure as heck would’ve agreed with you at the time. “There’s no way this decision is going to bite me,” I would’ve said confidently.
Well, my best seller was a Bridget Jones-style pair of “the biggest knickers you’d ever seen,” and the only image I had of it was, well a very large butt. A model’s butt, nonetheless when you put that big a piece of fabric on anything, it magnifies it to the scale of a Mount Everest.
Which would be fine if our customers weren’t women, 45+…..looking at our site…at work.
Which, lucky for me, once I showed my VP my genius marketing for the homepage, she only looked at me like I was the first documented case of Ebola in the US, and promptly changed it.
I got bit in the butt (by a large butt, now what are the odds of that?)
So know your customer, or you will get bit.
Story 2: From the press
So you may have seen Lands End took some flack from a free gift of GQ in some customers’ packages. Why would they look a gift horse in the mouth, right? It’s a free magazine (and we all know no one pays for those anymore)!!!
Well, Lands End’s customer is demographically similar to the customer from my story above, probably more concentrated in the Midwest, probably married, owns home, with kids.
So the GQ mag had a mostly topless woman on its cover….Not really what the Midwestern housewife wants (or expects) from her wholesome, preppy, Lands End in the mail.
“Hey Ma – we gotta package at the door, can I open it?!??”
“Why sure Tommy, go ahead, it’s probably your golashes for back to school I ordered, remember the navy ones with the white stripes and the little Kelly green whales on them?”
“Yea-Mom!!! LOOK BOOBIES!!!!!!!!!!!”
GQ Cover July 2014 – A Bonus for Little Tommy
There’s nothing wrong with partnership, or free gifts in packages, or magazines, or boobies, for that matter. There’s no question there was no mal intent on either side. There’s also no question that much like my story above the demographics and lifestyles and the likely interactions that the customer would have with the product were overlooked.
It happens. But it doesn’t let us marketers off the hook from understanding our customers, complex and challenging as they might be.
Yes, understanding your customer is the keystone of marketing.
Still wanna step outside?
the marketing lunch 