When positioning turns into spin
Nothing brings a bad product to its knees like a really good marketing campaign.
If your product or service is a little dated.
Or tired.
Or not up to scratch.
And you think that marketing is the answer?
Well - you are right AND wrong.
Firstly, let's look at what marketing really is.
"Doing marketing" is running ads, or tweeting, or sending a newsletter.
But Marketing is more than just promotional tactics or campaigns. Marketing is satisfying customer needs in a financially sustainable way and then telling everyone (in your target market) about it.....
So, Good Marketing can obviously help a Bad Business. It can help you get focused upon who are the customers you are likely to secure, how you are going to secure them, what messages you need to convey, and put you in places where you can engage to build a relationship.
But, "doing marketing" for a bad business is, frankly, a waste of time.
You will attract people to your business who will then be disastisfied and go away - move on - and never believe the marketing messages you send them in the future.
It happened to me recently.
I was most excited to be going to a spa resort for a weekend. All of the Venue's marketing spoke of 5 Stars, of lucsious service, of being treated like a celebrity...
The reality was that this place was OK. The staff were alright. It was a bit dated and tired - but at least clean.
But it was not the fantasy that they had so successfully created by their marketing.
So - I won't be back.
They didn't just try and "position" their business as regional Victoria's leading spa resort and then deliver.
They 'spun' the message. Which turned out to be not truthful. Which broke my trust. Which means I won't be back - despite the fact that is was clean, the massage was fine, the food was good. If it has matched my expectation - fantastic.
But it didn't.
For which I blame the Venue - because they had established my high expectation in the first place.
So. Are there things in your business that you need to fix before you start "doing marketing"? If so, you need to apply marketing strategy first. Have it direct you as to how to package your products and services.
And - then run the campaign.
What do you think?
Do you have examples of companies who think marketing is spin rather than genuine positioning?
