ENSURE YOUR SUCCESS, with Marketing.

No Business, No Social Service, No Professional Service of Doctors / Lawyers / Tutors, actually Nobody, succeeds in life or Business without being a successful marketer. Yes, Everybody needs it – Soccer Teams, Hospitals, Schools, Social Groups, Political Parties, Film-Makers, Self-Help groups, Corporate Professionals, NGOs, Community Businesses….Yes, everybody.

Rightly said, Marketing is Business.

It’s a fact that you won’t reach peak, if you are not a successful Marketer.

Read on the Basics because it’s for you too !

First of all, Marketing is not Sales. And that Sales ( Yield ) is a result of good Marketing practices, is altogether a different discussion and we shall avoid it here right now. Since Sales is result of Marketing, you must know Marketing to get desired results.

MARKETING is about understanding the need ( of the customer ), creating required Products, reaching the customer, communicating with it and satisfying the need of the customer with a defined price / time / effort.

A Customer is somebody who avails the service or buys the Product of an organisation. Like for a museum, a visitor is a customer. For a teacher, her students are customers. Likewise….

To understand clearly  What it means and How Marketing can positively  affect our Careers and lives, let us take some cases here – Of 

1.  Lawyer

2. Teacher

3. Administration Head of an organisation and

4.an employee in Production deptt. of an organisation.

Let’s Start our Crash Course in Marketing.

1. Set Your goal

Decide what you want to achieve. Setting goals is first and foremost task. Those of you who first decide on product and then on Yields / Results / Sales targets are doomed to fail. Product / Service / Action will follow what you want to achieve.

Let us see through case studies ( for deciding goals ) :

Lawyer : To handle cases of Economic Fraud, Involving High Networth Individuals ( HNIs ), Anywhere in India.

Teacher : To teach mathematics to poor students ( free of cost ) of class IX and Class X in a remote village.

Admin Head ( of an organisation ): Ensure cleanliness of the premises at the minimum possible cost but without compromising on quality of cleanliness.

Employee ( in the Production deptt of a company ): To secure highest ever production level during his shifts.

2. Define, Who is your Customer. What is the need and want of your market.

Defining Your customer is very close to defining your market. Major difference is only in the scale of it. Actually, total of customers ( and also the turnover they generate ) can be called Marketing. For example, buyer of children’s toothpaste is a customer whereas total population of customers and the quantity they buy ( in total ) is the market for children’s toothpaste.

Lawyer : Banks ( who give loans to HNI ), IT department, Commercial Taxes deptt, Other Govt agencies acting against economic fraudsters, etc.

Teacher : Village Panchayats ( who can bring such poor students ), NGOs, Parents of such students, Students themselves.

Admin Head ( of an organisation ): All employees, visitors to the premises and staff who are involved in cleanliness and maintenance of the premises.

Employee ( in the Production deptt of a company ):  All his colleagues in the Production Shift he works in ( because without their help he can not achieve the desired production level ) , HR Manager and Production shift incharge ( who will help them with required resources ).

3. Define your product.

Defining Product is very important as it would help us define the communication and customer services also.

For Admin Head ( of an organisation ) here, the Product is a neat, clean, hygienic and an inviting premises which offers a memorable experience to the visitors.

Likewise for the Lawyer ( in the case study here ), the Product is winning the cases in the favour of his clients.

For Teacher ( in the case study here ), the Product is examination result of the Clss IX and Class X students in the villages. The better the results ( and success ), the better the enrolment as encouraged parents flock in with their wards.

Employee ( in the Production deptt of a company ): To create and maintain an environment where he gets full support of all his colleagues  ( belonging to engineering, security, jaccounts, etc ) into achieving the desired results.

4. Preparing infrastructure or organisation, if required.

Office, Staff, Network of service providers, etc.

Admin Head ( of an organisation ):  Appointing required staff, buying tools, putting up dustbins etc at right places,  updating machineries if so required.

Employee ( in the Production deptt of a company ):  Getting right set of employees, maintenance tools, etc

5. Communication – Reaching Customers

Unless you reach the customers properly, you miss the opportunity to make them use your product. To reach your customers, deciding on Communication is very important . How comfortably they can connect with you.

For Admin Head ( of an organisation ) – Putting up signages for visitors, staff, Using notice boards etc.

Likewise for the Lawyer ( in the case study here ), the Product is winning the cases in the favour of his clients.

For Teacher ( in the case study here ), the Product is examination result of the Clss IX and Class X students in the villages. The better the results ( and success ), the better the enrolment as encouraged parents flock in with their wards.

Employee ( in the Production deptt of a company ): To create and maintain an environment where he gets full support of all his colleagues  ( belonging to engineering, security, jaccounts, etc ) into achieving the desired results.

6. Pricing

Defining the pricing . Note that pricing is not always in monetary terms. Iit can be customers time and efforts, actually. Like in the case of Teacher here in this case.

7. Customer Service

How do you solve the problems of your customers when they face it even while / after trying your product . What mechanism you put in place to Address, minimise ( or rule out ) such issues, resulting in a delighted customer.

Keeping your products updated with time.

What to take special care of :

1. Don’t oversell. Talk and Look meaningful – pestering customers ( unnecessarily ) guarantee their running away from you.
2. Talk to buyers, not everybody – You must know who is the customer so that you talk to the right persons. Pharmaceutical companies talk to Medical Doctors ( for prescribing their products ) and not to the patients as Doctors are the buyer behaviour influencer here.
3. Keep your product regularly updated – for a restaurant, food is not the only part of product. Their Menu, cutlery, behaviour, manners and appearance of the waiters, expected cleanliness of the place, Car parking space, are also part of the Product. Customers don’t buy only the Food. Unless every part of the Product is updated, customers may run away.

Wish You Happy Marketing and Success !