EDWARD S. SUCHERMAN & ASSOCIATES LTD.

With all due respect to the remarkable and brilliant Oprah Winfrey, this week I have had some ah-hah moments of my own.

Marketing has been my life and career, and I really believe that there is a marketing answer to nearly every business problem.  I have proven this time and again, in company after company, through the years.  But this current recession has had me stumped. 

As you who have been reading my blog know full well, I have been searching all I have learned during my 39 year career for marketing answers to help bring businesses out of this slump.  There have been so many rapid changes in technologies, media, demographics, economics, social movements, tastes, etc.  I have been discussing these for the past six months or more.  And I have read a lot in the last year…two books by Thomas Friedman (The World is Flat and Hot, Flat, and Crowded), New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott, Joker One by Donovan Campbell, The Blue Zones by Dan Buettner, Break from the Pack by Oren Harari, The Great Depression Ahead by Harry Dent, The Evolution of God by Robert Wright, Your Government has Failed You by Richard Clark, The Age of Turbulence by Alan Greenspan, The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein, The Age of the Unthinkable by Joshua Cooper Ramo, The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich, and The 50^th Law by Robert Greene and 50 Cent.  All of these were fantastic books and I highly recommend them.  I have also read every article I could get my hands on by David Brooks of the New York Times. 

This week, all of this insightful information came together in my little mind.

My ah-hah marketing moment number 1: Every person over 21 living in the United States has been changed by the Great Recession of the past two years.  If there are 350 million Americans, I am probably talking about 280 million of them.  Each is unique.  Each has a different reaction to the technological, financial and demographic changes.  You can no longer assume that you know your target market.  You only know these people as a group, a generalization – and the generalizations are now dead.  During the good times, life was much easier, and we became fat, slow, and dumbed-down.  We now lack the urgency to connect to our markets, one person at a time.  This is death for your business.  You have to get back inside their minds.  LIVE INSIDE YOUR CUSTOMERS – YOUR BUSINESS DEPENDS UPON IT.

My ah-hah marketing moment number 2: How do you accomplish this (ah-hah number 1) if you have hundreds or thousands of customers, and each one thinks uniquely?  You use technology.  Instead of using your web site just to make sales or as a tool for your customers, vendors, bankers, etc. to research your company… USE YOUR WEB SITE TO COLLECT INDIVIDUAL INFORMATION DIRECTLY FROM YOUR CUSTOMERS.  Create a forum or blog or give something away.  Find a way to get their comments on your products, plus their wants and needs, which I guarantee have changed over the past two years.  Thrive on their feedback.

My ah-hah marketing moment number 3: Use this feedback to change your strategies and, therefore, your marketing message.  In one of my previous blogs, I talked about SHARE OF SOUL.  But I never understood that, to reach someone’s soul, you need to know what they value TODAY.  From The 50^th Law: “Understand: in this day and age, to reach people you must have access to their inner lives – their frustrations, aspirations, resentments.  To do so, you must crush as much distance as possible between you and your audience.  You enter their spirit and absorb it from within.”

My ah-hah marketing moment number 4: Get back to the basics of your target market.  As your company has grown, quantity has replaced quality.  The passionate feelings of youth are left behind.  You begin to work and live with wealthier and more successful people.  After the past couple of years, you have probably lost touch with your original target market.  It’s time to renew old relationships and old habits and re-learn who you are selling to, if they still trust you, and what they really want.  YOUR KNOWLEDGE CANNOT JUST BE VERBAL: YOU NEED TO BE ABLE TO FEEL WHAT YOUR TARGET MARKET IS THINKING.  IT NEEDS TO BE INSTINCTUAL, SO YOU CAN BE THE FIRST TO CATCH TRENDS, SOMETIMES BEFORE THEY HAPPEN.  KEEP YOUR FINGER ON THE PULSE OF YOUR TARGET MARKET.

My ah-hah marketing moment number 5:  Recessions are based upon fear.  Fear is perhaps the most basic, primal instinct of man and animal.  Through no fault of their own, many Americans are out of work.  Many others feel disenfranchised, unrepresented and powerless as the United States undergoes radical demographic changes.  These same people are bewildered by middle classes growing in staggering numbers across the world, especially in China and India.  Entire industries are moved overseas and gone forever.  Americans who still have jobs worry about losing them.  KNOW THAT EVERYONE YOU DEAL WITH, FROM CUSTOMERS TO VENDORS TO BANKERS ARE LIVING IN FEAR.  LEAD THEM FEARLESSLY.

The single thread was and is your marketing message, based upon your strategies.  Your strategies are based upon your values and character.  YOUR MARKETING MESSAGE NEEDS TO CHANGE TOWARD CONSTANT FLEXIBILITY AND OPPORTUNISM.  IN FACT, THAT MAY ACTUALLY BECOME YOUR MAIN MARKETING STRATEGY. You cannot possibly create a strategy carved in stone when the needs, wants, and desires of your market will certainly change in the next months, weeks, days, or even hours. 

I am now ready to create my webinar for marketing professionals (you need not be a marketing professional to “attend” – anyone who wants to seriously improve his or her business is invited).  I will be creating this in the next few days and weeks.  PLEASE E-MAIL ME TO SIGN UP, AND I WILL GET BACK TO YOU AS SOON AS I HAVE A TIME AND DATE.  THE WEBINAR WILL BE FREE AND WITHOUT ANY OBLIGATION WHATSOEVER.

Ed Sucherman

THE MARKETING MACHINE

edsucherman@gmail.com

www.edsucherman.com

http://edsucherman.com/edsblog/

Tags: Demographic change, Fear, Internet, Marketing Strategy, Share of soul, marketing message //