Is Classical Marketing Dead?

Is "classical marketing" dead? Many who are pushing books sales and marketing services relating to Digital Age developments, think so. With it, a popular impression has evolved that marketing is finite skill all by itself.

Like a Footprint Set in Wet Concrete

The same basic principles of the traditional marketing disciplines will always apply — just like wheels are still round after all those years. Just like the Marketing Mix will be the Marketing Mix, just like there is still plenty of room for elegant styling to set a company apart from others. Customers will always instinctively recognise it and pay more if combined with attentive and tailored customer service. The basic disciplines of marketing comprise a vast array of skills and keen awareness of the arduous tasks involved in generating durable expansion and loyal customers — at a profit.

Building a real brand and customer retention only evolves over time. Like a footprint set in wet concrete, once brand perception has been achieved, it will be hard to remove. The fundamentals of marketing achieve this, not splashy ad campaigns.

Some of the brilliant marketing campaigns by the famous brands still show that the same basic skills, whilst making use of the Digital Age technologies, are still highly effective.

Elegance and Style are still In Fashion

For many products and businesses, gone are the days when you could carefully plan out your marketing and public relations programmes well in advance and release them on your timetable. We now live in a "real-time" world, often requiring instant solutions. Business plans need to include provision for "right-now" strategy and adaptation.

How can you deliver value faster today? Such a marketing strategies have a profound impact on an entire business and it processes, but with the increase of speed in delivery it can have a negative influence on the fruits of observation and resulting in a lack of detail in communication quality to customers.

News breaks in minutes, not days. Ideas percolate, then unpredictably go viral to a global audience. Companies develop (or refine) products or services instantly, based on feedback from customers or events in the marketplace. Those businesses that see an opportunity and are the first to act on it, they gain the advantage.

Keeping perspective, only the methodology to communicate to the customer, use of new information management technology, speed in identifying and ability to respond to customer needs and routes to market will ever change, but never the true basic principles of marketing itself.

Caught up in traditional processes, companies can leave themselves exposed by flying blind through this new media environment. A strategy with a clear path is required to navigate and succeed in the changed business landscape, covering:

• The basics of creating durable customer demand and loyalty are contained within the time-tested definition of marketing:"the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably".

• Develop a business culture that encourages speed over sloth, supported by efficient processes

• Read buying signals as people interact with your online information

• Command premium prices by delivering the right products at speed

• Deploy technology to listen in on millions of online discussions - instantly engage with customers and buyers

• Engage reporters to shape stories as they are being written

Scale and media buying power are no longer a decisive advantage. What counts today is speed and agility. While your competitors scramble to adjust, you can seize the initiative, open new channels and grow your brand.

First Class Customer Service Rule

First class customer service is still a large part of that quality of "differentness" that customers are willing to pay for, even during difficult trading times.

Such level of customer service can only be assured when the internal processes of a business, including manufacturing, are completely dedicated to this principle, involving all of the business. More : Developing perfect internal processes that guarantee customer loyalty.

Our diversity of skills and services can help you pinpoint a business- and marketing strategy that fits snugly with your company, products and resources, company processes and sharpen a culture to adapt to the rapidly changing conditions around us.

Please call us for a no obligation exploratory discussion

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