There is one hard fact in marketing; markets are fluid and that they evolve.
Marketing Evolution
The first evolution of marketing was born out of necessity. Think the 1950’s; people needed stuff, especially those coming home from war, and so distribution, specifically branding the distribution, became the first focus of broad scale marketing efforts to not only reach customers but retain them and serve them in as many ways as possible (e.g., Woolworths, Sam’s, etc).
Although it took the better part of 30 years, distribution became ubiquitous, able to reach every American. The market became flush with choices; ushering in the next evolution of marketing; product marketing. With customer’s now routinely purchasing through the same relatively small set of channels, companies began focusing on the flow of product through them. The focus shifted towards building demand by aligning features and benefits to a better way of life; even on the B2B side where the same approach was used to drive the promise of more efficient and more cost-effective operations.
Early adopters were able to build sustained market share advantages and highly differentiate product brands; giving them numerous avenues for new growth. Fast forward to today and competitors have all but fully closed the gap in almost every conceivable niche category and as a result, competition within B2C, B2B, and even B2G markets has reached critical mass. The noise from so many competitors with similar or even the exact same value propositions, all aggressively competing for the same personal or professional budget has simply deafened the entire market and in doing so, fundamentally altered the dynamics of demand.
Game Changer
With the exception of innovative standouts (think Apple) that can reshape an entire market landscape on a new single product introduction, markets are log-jammed with me-too-noise that is increasingly ineffective in incentivizing and inspiring demand. Logically buyers are now in the position of strength, focusing on only their top priorities; whether it’s investing in only mission critical technology upgrades because there is a pressing operational need, or retail buyers buying only for immediate gratification at the moment at which it strikes them. The noise has reinforced an expectation of ubiquitous product availability, resulting in a new mindset that says I don’t need to make a move until I “want” to. Buyers still buy of course, but the dynamics by which they formulate the decision to buy has changed and for the most partly negatively for the role of the marketer whose job it is to make them “need” to buy. They know that at a moment’s notice they can power-up their smart phones and line-up five competitors who will trip over one another to land a deal, any deal they can get.
Welcome to the current inflection point, of the next, third evolution of marketing is happening; today where product marketing is giving way to a concept I’ve coined relationship engineering.
Business Imperative
The base appeals are no longer effective and the formula for finding willing buyers and building buying alignment into your target markets requires a new level of intricacy than bluntly touting features and benefits and trolling for active buyers. Buyers now need a vision. They need to see the future world enabled by your product or service as their own destination; the one that allows them to reach their own goals for themselves both personally and professionally. For B2B companies this means not just selling your software based on what it does, but selling them on a new operational future that a relationship with your company and the solutions its offers can deliver now and why. The destination has now become more important than the vehicle that gets you there and one good example is Taco Bell’s campaign around 4th Meal. It used to be Taco Bell sold good drunk food, cheap and late; now it’s you gotta be living right to make 4th meal which naturally is a greasy burrito wrapped in a chalpua. Or take VMware, who once sold virtualized servers and now who provides cloud-based micro-level control over your organization’s computing overhead.
The single greatest impact marketing can have on an organization’s growth potential is how to best position the company – the relationship you offer to the market.
How best do you leverage the value represented by your products, your services, your people; how do you compartmentalize and nullify the value of competing offerings; and what is the right future-destination to steer the market towards. These all constitute an expectation of the importance of your relationship to the market and by far will give you the greatest returns possible on lead-gen, conversion and ultimately year-over-year growth.
Want to achieve breakthrough results, engineer your relationship to the market.
(Guest Author Mike Borek is an entrepreneurially-minded, marketing MBA with over 12 years experience as a marketing strategy, creative communications and business development specialist who has a no-nonsense, sales-first approach to engineering breakthrough growth results for public, private and start-up companies in numerous industry segments.
Mike serves as growth architect and market engineer who helps early-stage growth companies innovate their market position to engineer buying optimal alignment and achieve breakthrough results. He operates as independent consultant through his site mikeborek.com where you can see tons of examples of companies he has helped in both B2B and B2C markets.)
