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While digital technology allows companies to monitor and track consumer behaviour, it also gives unprecedented power to consumers to influence public opinion of companies and their products. Starting a conversation builds bridges and can turn a critic to a happy customer. We are human after all, and respond to genuine human connections.
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Too often in the business world we use our left brain, the logical part, exclusively, and ignoring the gut feeling – intuition. Yet the likes of Steve Jobs and the US military acknowledge the power of “unconscious reasoning” over intellect. Not to be dismissed as airy fairy, intuition has an important part to play in the success in business and other parts of our lives.
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Companies no longer hold the power, consumers do. Thanks to the internet – from employees reviewing and rate employers through Glassdoor, to regular people investing through crowdfunding.
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Businesses are scrambling to get on board the social media bus, but how do you get consumers to care about brands? Not by “engagement” or “interacting”, but by embracing the basic value social media delivers – being part of the social community and improving relationships.
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Great analogy of China’s apps to swamp monsters apps, mutated to the environment controlled by the government. The more sobering question is, while we are envious of it, do we emulate the “Super App” of WeChat and compromise our privacy, more than we have already? Is it Big Data or Big Brother?
Check out this humourous and thought provoking video. Be sure to view it to the end - great parallel.
To be relevant in marketing your business and products, a marketer needs to understand both the core principles of marketing, and also the fundamentals, tools, techniques of digital. Click on picture to read article.
While almost all functions in a company have a defined scope, marketing may come across as an undefined function in business because of it dips "in and out of various business interests". It's time we realise and embrace the fact that marketing is the gel, and perhaps the strongest link, in a business. Click on picture to read article.
I graduated with a degree in Organisational Development, a human behaviour social science degree with business courses such as marketing, economics, accounting and business management.
MARKETING CARS - THE MG ZR160
I grew into marketing when I was in the car industry. I moved from a dealer sales role at Peugeot into a marketing and sales function at MG Rover. Because it was a new company under new ownership, we had a lot of fun starting everything from scratch. Marketing cars was entertaining – we had a small budget by the car industry standards and no digital platforms. I learnt by doing, and had a blast organising car shows (Big Boys Toys), working with the ad agency with branding initiatives, organising new car launches and promotions, and working with car dealers.
Then it was time to experience the bigger world outside of the car industry. I worked as a contractor in various industries, and got a Brand Manager job at PLYCOSELECT, the now defunct door manufacturing business unit of Fletcher Building. I was fortunate to have a boss with a robust marketing background to mentor and guide me.
After PLYCO was closed by Fletcher Building, I got a sole charge marketing job at IBEX Industries, manufacturing, distributing and export company in the meat processing industry. There at IBEX, I had to stretch to learn the industry and the technical products, take on the responsibilities of marketing, product management and export distribution management. My boss used to call the projects that he gave me which were outside my job scope “hospital passes”. As a result I learnt more about the in’s and out’s of a New Zealand business playing on the world stage than I ever would if I were in a large company.
IBEX, like MG Rover, was a small business, and had big ambitions for the export markets. My job was to create the perception of a robust company who is on par with the big boys in the international market. We were the biblical David marketing ourselves like Goliath. We didn’t have size but we had nimbleness and resourcefulness on our side.
In a small business everyone did what they needed to get the job done, so there were days I was on the phone taking and then processing customer orders, something to which I’m sure a lot of business owners can relate.
What I know about business and marketing I gained from the school of hard knocks, by doing and learning from mistakes and successes. I found myself putting processes in place where there were no processes, pulling vital information from the heads of the experienced people and making them accessible to customers and distributors, shaping the way business is done by understanding the customer’s perspective.
Then I discovered out my philosophy and methods in business and marketing was not as unorthodox as I thought – and that my perspectives marry up with what is practiced or taught in business schools – I just didn’t have the acronyms to categorise them.
marketing by doing
Why am I telling you the big story? I suspect most of you can relate to gaining your most valuable experiences from the school of hard knocks and have your own story to tell. You would know this type of learning teaches you to be resourceful and adaptive to make things work.
As our lives are more digitised, so are marketing activities. The digital world has opened up a myriad of possibilities to marketing; the consumer now controls what they want to see and hear, and how they want to consume products and information. Tuning in to the digital landscape has been an evolving and exciting challenge for me. The limitations in traditional marketing in terms of cost, adaptability, measurability are pushed out in the digital environment. Digital marketing is not just a set of skills; it is another component of the marketing mix.
For many businesses this is new and little understood (possibly a bit scary) territory. To be relevant in marketing your business and products, a marketer needs to understand both the core principles of marketing, and also the fundamentals, tools, techniques of digital. I look forward to working with you in presenting an integrated offering with the learning from my career blended with application of the digital environment.
Cindy Posimani
INTUITIVE CONSULTING helps small and medium businesses market like big companies.
