Marketing Mix: What is your marketing goal?
Even though it might seem to some managers that business has many more important challenges to deal with than details as marketing, reality always comes back with a sudden strike proving them wrong. I was currently in a situation where I had the opportunity to be reassured in the importance of marketing. However, it was even more impressive as management realized that something should be done, they only failed to figure out what.
The major problem was caused by the fact that management failed to understand how marketing worked. They were ordered to act so that the company could fight its way to more customers and they did so. They planned a range of activities covering all the fields of expertise. They planned 3 years ahead. This should have secured them some success, they meant.
The results, however, were far from expected. After investing a lot of time and engaging many employees whose time costs a lot and spending 8 months believing that they are headed to success, results turned to be more than disappointing. All the efforts and investments did not lead to winning even one major customer over.
And here comes the question: WHY?
The answer is as simple as that: what they were doing was doomed from the moment it started. The reason was that their action plan was merely a list of possible actions. There was no research to understand the market. No real evaluation of resources. No bench marketing. And finally – no goal setting.
Even though all of the mentioned marketing stages are critically important, I will now focus on goal setting. That is simply because I was stunned by the difficulties management faced trying to understand the concept of a goal. They would just keep calling a simple action a goal, failing to grasp that it is only the desired outcome of an action that can be called a goal.
A goal is a realistic and desirable reflection of the future. Where we want to and can be in a year from now, for example. A company would usually have some big goals which are included in the business strategy. Those might be both extrinsic and intrinsic, that is measurable and difficultly measurable. Those goals are in turn translated into multiple micro goals which are included in the operational strategy. They are the milestones which the planned actions aim at.
Now it is maybe a bit clearer why a strategy excluding any goal setting is doomed. If we don’t know where we are headed, how are we ever going to get there? Mission impossible.
That is why a goal setting is one of the most important elements of a successful strategy. There are some who suggest that choosing the right goals is already a win. This is because setting the goals wisely and precisely can show you the way to achieving them.
Many lecturers in marketing, communication and project management teach the principle of the turned pyramid where your major goal is divided into sub-goals which are translated into actions by asking the same question again and again: How am I going to achieve this? Asking this question enough times, you are going to end up with a list of simple options and possibilities to start from.
Setting your goals should therefore be realistic. Otherwise you are going to end up putting a lot of energy and using a lot of resources on something that is only going to bring you disappointment. Realistic however does not mean that you cannot be progressive and innovative. What it means is that you need to keep your goals real by checking business development as it comes along. You need to control your progress so that goals can be adjusted to reality.
If you follow those pretty simple steps, you are not guaranteed a great success as there are many factors one cannot take into account. You are though guaranteed that no major failure is headed your way. In an uncertain business environment this is already a win. Marketing is generally not an exact science. It gives though the basic guidelines for survival and in some cases for prosperity. Following its principles is hardly a choice any more. You either do it or you end up in the same situation as the one described in the beginning here.
DIDI
