The Marketing Society recently published a new manifesto for marketing excellence in their words “a new and improved formula for marketing for the next decade”.
It begins with a definition of the purpose of marketing – “To create sustainable growth by understanding, anticipating and satisfying customer need.” If you’re wondering whether the marketing you run in your business is up to scratch, it might be worth considering if everything you do sits comfortably within this definition. If your marketing isn’t doing this, perhaps it needs a refresh?
The manifesto challenges marketers to do three things:
Pursue your purpose
Champion customers
Mobilise the organisation
Each of these challenges is broken down into more specific elements for example “Bring the voice of the customer into the boardroom” and having read the full 14 page document, I think there’s some really interesting ideas in there that can benefit all organisations whatever their age, structure and industry.
If I have to pick a single area as the most important I think it would be “Anticipate customer needs”. Understanding what customers really need is central to effective marketing. In practice this requires us to understand who our customers are, what they want, what our competition offers and the opportunities and threats that present them to us as a consequence.
My second favourite is probably “Find creative ways to engage”. Most of our clients provide excellent products or services but are not brand leaders. For them to unlock their full potential, they need to find ways to generate interest, curiosity and desire great enough to get their customers to ignore the traditional brands and buy something different.
If you would like to see a summary and compare your attitudes to the manifesto with other marketers you can click here. Alternatively, if you would like to discuss any aspect of the manifesto and how it fits with your business, please get in touch
Enjoy the sunshine,
Chris