MARKETING
We've always believed that no two marketing professionals will have precisely the same definition of marketing. And, odd as that sounds, imagine how much more difficult it is for those for whom marketing is a sideline, a means to some larger end, to develop a meaningful understanding of what marketing is and can do for them.
Here’s a definition we find useful:
Marketing is the process whereby businesses and professionals become customer driven; where customers define their needs and wants, and business develops techniques for acquitting those needs and wants and for informing its constituency as to its ability to fulfill their needs.
That definition, by the way, is equally applicable to all sorts of organizations or enterprises, including both those whose primary purpose is to make money and those for whom money is a means to enable them to deliver some sort of service in a nonprofit capacity.
Research and strategic planning are the cornerstones of effective marketing and should drive the more familiar communications and outreach functions that are typically the most visible elements of marketing. After many years of observation and participation, it is still astonishing to see how often those priorities are reversed, usually to the enduring detriment of what was supposed to have been a marketing program.
You have one chance to get it right. That requires some homework.
note: Rich Livingston's marketing chops were developed as the marketing partner of a $35-million advertising agency in Washington, DC
MISSION CLARIFICATION
Lots of people recoil when they hear language about “mission” or, worse, “mission statement.”
That said, there is real merit in helping ensure that everyone you depend on to help you achieve whatever it is you are trying to do shares a common understanding of exactly what that may be. That’s really all a statement of your mission is: this is why this enterprise exists, and this is what we hope to achieve, for ourselves and for those we serve. Let’s face it: if you can’t describe – succinctly and meaningfully – what you’re all about, how in the world can you expect those to whom you have something to offer to understand you?
MODERATING
Trying to facilitate deep discussion without interjecting any personal perspectives is a challenging assignment. Yet a failure to stay out of the debate would render most panel discussions moot. Certainly they would not have accomplished their original intent, at least.
It’s not easy to sublimate one’s own strong opinions, even when the objective is to collect or convey the opinions of others. Ever get annoyed at certain talk show hosts purporting to be independent journalists, but who simply can’t resist the temptation to tell us all how they really feel?
Rich Livingston is a veteran of having moderated more than 1,000 focus group panel discussions all across the U.S. and Canada. Millions of dollars worth of marketing decisions have been made on the basis of the opinions collected in that process and any violation of the principal of independence on the part of the moderator would have severely impacted the utility of the information.
Let us help.