Do You Think Like a Marketer?

Had a chance to hear Lauron Sonnier, author of Think Like a Marketer, speak recently. Her very direct and basic presentation served as a great update on the critical importance of ALWAYS thinking about one’s business in terms of marketing impact. Her focus is on defining “what it really takes to stand out from the crowd, the clutter and the competition.”

Marketing can be a difficult concept for non-marketers such as inventors, product developers, and entrepreneurs whose ideas have taken root in the form of a new enterprise. But regardless of what a business buys, sells, creates or fulfills, that core business must be communicated and sold to prospective customers. According to Sonnier, there are several ways to develop and maintain a marketing mindset for the business.

• Demonstrate that marketing is a top priority for the company and its leadership. Prove it with commitment and back it up with the treasury. To do otherwise moves marketing out of the priority bracket.
• Ensure that all employees (and vendor partners, too) are excited about marketing. They have to be “sold” on the company’s initiatives before clients will respond. Sonnier states, “Show them the positive effects of it. Success is validation that what they do is important and of need and service to others.” Continue to provide answers to employee’s’ key question WIIFM (What’s in it for me?).
• Hold everyone accountable to the firm’s marketing program, standards and systems. They are in place for a reason.
• Celebrate all marketing successes large and small. When efforts to build and maintain marketing momentum are realized, shout it to the team, even those small successes.
• Perpetually ask if words, actions and decisions – each one – are consistent with how the company is positioned in the marketplace If it’s off-target, it’s off the action steps list.

I walked away from the event at which Sonnier spoke invigorated, renewed and recommitted to our firm’s marketing efforts. And it was a real eye-opener to reminded that anyone who expects revenues from customers must think like a marketer. And everyone must have in place a practical marketing plan with clever strategies that respond to even a bare-bones budget.

What is the neatest or coolest marketing activity you’ve seen or done recently that proves you can think like a marketer?

Lauron Sonnier’s book, Think Like a Marketer, is available at Amazon.com and Borders.com.