Marketing myths that affect your business

Found these pictures from the Philippine Daily Inquirer photo archives.

Here’s a challenge: how do you market them?

Marketing strategies can make or break a business. Karen de Asis, author of the book “Color Folders of the Mind: A Branding Story,” lists marketing myths that can harm your business. Here’s an excerpt from her article:

Marketing communications, often associated with advertising, can be deferred or done away with as long as the products and services are massively available in trade.

The truth is, without investments in awareness-building marketing activities, it may take time for end-users to know the product or service exists and in many cases, they may not know it at all.

As long as the product or service sells, there is no real need to fortify with image-building and sustaining marketing activities.

Not true. Marketing aims to optimize and sustain the brand for generations to come. What a business owner must assess is what segment of the universe of the potential market one wishes to serve and for how long will the market be served.

Having good advertising is enough to compel consumers to buy a product.

Not true. Successful marketing is the sum of complementary marketing activities that include having a good product, right pricing, wide distribution and awareness programs that reach the intended market with a unique, differentiated and compelling benefit.

Being on the trade shelf is a guarantee of a product’s movement.

Not always true. Here comes the special relationship of trade accounts and marketing people with retailers. The trade marketing people must make sure that the branch or area manager, category-in-charge, customer service people are aware of the product’s existence on the shelf. A call to the customer service counter or a query with the floor sales attendant can be a lost sales opportunity if the response is in the negative when in fact the product has been sitting on the shelf.

Customer feedback is often negative.

Not true. If the customer is satisfied with the product or service delivery, then positive feedback comes unsolicited.

Business owners can chart and do the marketing themselves.

True, but they need to understand what marketing and creating demand for products and services entails. Or they can avail themselves of expert skills. Still, they must ascertain the skill and know-how of the marketer or consultant they are getting on board. If marketing is not done well, it can be a costly and self-destructive exercise.

From Open For Business:
I’m sure you’ll agree that too many good products and businesses have died because their owners had no clue how to market them well. So use these tips! After all, they’re free.

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