Mary Schmidt Marketing Troubleshooter

As I say, “Everything you do is marketing” but often people only think of marketing with the small “m” – the fun stuff such as logos and “creative” ads...and they spend waste big bucks on it. (”We’ll run a great ad campaign to increase our sales!” Never mind that the product developers weren’t asked if the product could actually do what the ad claims…or that nobody ever talked to a real, live customer.)

Marketing on the other hand is – well – everything. You plan…you review…you test…you do both best and worst case scenarios for funding…you talk to customers…you listen to them…you build an integrated, multi-phased business/marketing plan, with the “fun” stuff supporting and reinforcing the business goals. (Then, you do the hard work, implementation and course corrections.)

So, what’s the difference between a marketer and a Marketer?

When viewing an entrepreneur’s investor presentation and his slide about competitive positioning:

m: “You need to change the font; Times-Roman is too old-fashioned. And, add some pop with an image; there’s lots of cool stock photos out there.”

M: “Just how are you better than your competitors? And, can you sustain that advantage?”

In reviewing the business plan:

m: “You need to brand your company!” (Never mind the company is Two Guys and a Dog, and they don’t even have a company yet.) Typically said by a small m-er who – surprise! – does logos and overpriced “identity packages” (oh boy! stationary and biz cards; we’ll set the world on fire now!) and calls it “branding.”

M: “Where’s your product road map? How are you going to meet the milestones? What are the critical inter dependencies? What happens if one of you gets sick? Your dog can’t write code.”

In reviewing the “go to market” plan:

m: “Let’s start with a press release we’ll blast out to thousands! We need to get a good ‘industry leader’ quote from the CEO.” (Remember, the CEO is one of the two guys, with no company and no product…they’re not leading anything right now.)

M: “Where’s your target market analysis? ‘Advertising in airline magazines’ and ‘nationwide PR campaign’ doesn’t fit your budget or technology industry sector.” (There are potentially 10 mega-customers for the 2G&D’s leading/screaming/bleeding edge tech component in a highly specialized industry.)

In talking with a small biz about their existing marketing:

m: “I’ll rewrite that Yellow Pages ad for you! You need a headline!”

M: “Why are you even in the Yellow Pages? Your target customers don’t go there. Let’s look at how you can really reach them, for a lot less money.”

In reviewing a small biz “marketing” problems:

m: You need to run a lot more radio ads.

M: You’ve got more than enough business. You need to fire your family. Your overhead is way too high.

You also see a lot of woefully outdated textbook marketing tactics (traditional PR, direct mail to purchased lists, print ads) when entrepreneurs get “free” help from MBA students. Not the students‘ fault, they’re using their book learning…and their speadsheets are things of beauty…but…

(Don’t get me wrong – good, effective creative work is hard work…but good creative people also don’t presume to be experts in other aspects of marketing, such as technology commercialization. Just as I don’t presume to be a graphics design pro. I’ve got a list of scary smart people I call for that.)

Related Posts:
The Boring Bits of Marketing
No, I Won’t Write Your Brochure.

Tags: marketing, marketing troubleshooting, product development, product development troubleshootingentrepreneur sanity check, business development