For decades market leaders and those who aspire to market leadership have tuned and re-tuned their marketing strategy to optimise their 4Ps.  Their marketing mix has seen a constant ebb and flow of emphasis on Product, Promotion, Price or Place (or Position, if you prefer.) 

With the diversity of opinions not just on terminology but also about the actual functions of  ‘marketing’, the poor 4 Ps seem to be competing one another for centre stage.

and then along came Jones
…Slow talking Jones
Along came long, lean, lanky Jones.

So what does he know about marketing strategy, marketing mix - or marketplace learning for that matter?  Read the rest of this entry »

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Topics: On marketing | Give Your Two Cents »

The business world has always had its market leaders.  We are now seeing a new type of business leader - one that leads marketplace learning.  Business profits come from people.  Killer products can be great.  Systems may be essential to optimize business profits.  But first and foremost, businesses depend on people - and on what people learn. 

When people learn things that are good for a business, that business can grow - business profits can grow.  Let people learn the grass is greener on someone else’s hill, and the result is inevitable.  Goodbye business.  If it ignores the influence of marketplace learning and starves people of what they need to know, any business can starve itself.

Market leaders win their position through influence on what is learned in the marketplace.

Consider this:  You have the best product there is, the most up-to-date facilities anyone could ever hope to have, the smartest, most competent people on the planet, the most efficient operational systems ever devised, and a great ’story’ to tell.  Does that mean you have a great business?  Read the rest of this entry »

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Topics: Marketplace Learning Soapbox | 2 Comments »

If (people) don’t know about you, what you are offering, your way of doing things, or any of the other umpteen issues that make them want to do business with you, then you don’t have a business.And if people in your market haven’t learned what you need them to know, think and do to benefit your business then, chances are, you are fighting for every single sale.Let’s face it – what people know, think and do is primarily learned behaviour.  OK, some things come naturally, like breathing, for example.  Yet some of us still seem to need a little slap on the butt to change our first struggle for breath into an instinctive, life-giving routine that we can’t do without.Buyers have more choice.  Before customers and clients get to the point of deciding they can’t do without you, there’s a lot of learning to be done. 

(This article has been replaced by “Marketplace Learning dictates Business Growth“)

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Topics: Marketplace Learning Soapbox | 1 Comment »

In a previous post I pointed to a scathing criticsm of marketing. [Is your marketing a joke?]   If you are ‘in marketing’, I hope you didn’t take it too seriously and actually go ‘kill yourself’.

So, if you survived, what’s your perception of marketing?  Chances are you are reading this without a doubt in your mind about what marketing is.  But I’m betting that it varies with your background and experiences.

‘Marketing’ is perhaps the most loosely used word in business language.  Everyone knows that profit is profit and a sale is a sale (unless your scepticism insists it’s not until the cheque is cleared.)  But for some reason ‘marketing’ seems to mean what we want it to mean.

Popular usage tends to equate marketing with the promotion of products, often conjuring thoughts of advertising and branding.  However, frequently used terms like Network Marketing, Direct Marketing and Internet Marketing embrace that more direct business activity: Selling!  (I like the honesty of direct response copywriters who describe their craft as “salesmanship-in-print”.

As a test of Read the rest of this entry »

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Topics: On marketing | Give Your Two Cents »

Do you know that more people are laughing at marketing than buying it?

Its true!  Maybe nobody has earned a PhD for researching this yet, but there is another way of knowing.  People vote with their feet!  And with their mouse clicks.

YouTube, one of those self-broadcasting phenomena giving everyone a soapbox, just threw up some interesting stats on “marketing”.

I work in an Internet environment so have a professional interest in Web 2.0 developments like social networking.  Naturally I like to keep up with things that are happening in my world.  One of those ‘things’ is the increasing use of YouTube and similar sites by marketing experts to distribute their commercial and educational messages.

So I logged on and searched “marketing”.  No surprise – I got thousands of listings.  But – and it’s a big BUT – their ranking shocked me.

There on that covetted first page were icons like Seth Godin (8,763 views) and Eben Pagan, one of the hottest gurus to burst onto the entrepreneurial education scene in recent times, pulling 12,623.  There was a cute video on “How to sell soap” sitting on 15,383, out-doing direct marketing maestro Dan Kennedy, sharing his knowledge and still going strong after 5186 appearances. 

Sitting boldly at the top of the list with 328,096 views is Read the rest of this entry »

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Topics: On marketing | Give Your Two Cents »

If you care about what people think, and know that is good for your business, then, already, we are on the same team.  Sadly, not everyone learns what is good for business.  To some degree, virtually all businesses are being robbed blind by ignorance.  So the odds are, that include’s you.

Stick around and we’ll see how you fare.  More importantly, we’ll start examining how to turn what you are silently loosing into extra profitable business.

I think you agree, there is a lot that needs to be learned to have a successful, profitable business.  Much of that involves the knowledge, skills and attitudes needed to run the business.  But the biggest, most profit-influencing learning needs are in people who are your business – the people in your marketplace.  What they come to know, think and do shapes your relationship with your market. 

When talking about Marketplace Learning I’m tempted to describe it as the activity that stops ignorance robbing your business as it stifles sales and drains profits.

But that’s not quite true.  It’s only half the story.  You see marketplace learning may be doing a marvellous hatchet job on ignorance – but you’re still getting robbed.  Because somebody else wields the hatchet and all the benefit is going somewhere else!  Hmmm!  Due to other ignorance, perhaps…?

How much is ignorance costing your business?

Let me start by asking you a question.  You probably know exactly how much overheads are costing your business, what your production and distribution costs are, what every one of your essential expenses are costing you.  You may even view them as investments, because they’re helping you make money.  But there is one cost that is skimming cream right off the top of virtually every business. And that’s IGNORANCE!

Do not dismiss it.  It’s one of those costs of doing business that plunder away unnoticed.  Fortunately, once recognised, it can be converted into profitable, revenue generating assets.  If you know how… Read the rest of this entry »

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Topics: Marketplace Learning Soapbox | Give Your Two Cents »