DAEMON QUEST - Los mejores artículos de Marketing y Ventas - Expansión

Mistakes made good

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 14:31:11 +0200

A failure in service is more visible to the customer than dozens of successes. Delays, defective products, or lost luggage are a black spot that quickly expands into quality control efforts. Many of these mistakes are avoidable. Customer recovery systems at that moment become a fundamental factor in re-building the company’s image.
Only one of five customers offers the company the possibility of recovering them, because only one files a complaint: the rest will simply not come back. This statistic added to the fact that, according to experts in several industries, it costs five times as much to obtain a new customer than to retain the old one, led many companies to include strategies to retain its customers.

Loyalty and the re-birth of Marketing

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 14:10:55 +0200

Management based on loyalty, which aims at retaining customers and employees in order to improve profitability, goes beyond the typical customer satisfaction surveys. The success of this strategy is based on understanding that satisfied customers are not necessarily loyal. In all strategies based on loyalty, the goal of Marketing must aim at “zero desertion”, and it is possible to measure it in terms of cash flow, given the close relationship between loyalty, value, and earnings.

The new role of Marketing

Until very recently, Marketing was the driving engine of businesses, the discipline that combined the company’s functional areas in order to satisfy the customer’s needs. It was understood that it played a key role in the company’s success. Today, Marketing departments all over the world are struggling to survive with less corporate stature and less personnel, because job cuts are aimed at those who cannot prove their worth to corporate earnings.
What is Marketing’s role? Some departments have thought of their role as customer service; others develop customer satisfaction surveys, and there were others that turned to promotional devices or direct mail programs. However, job and budget cuts continue to occur. Its decline is a regrettable fact, because Marketing is truly the essence of the forces that mobilize companies’ success and earnings. Our work proves that the most successful companies are those that cultivate loyalty – of customers, employees, and investors. The true enemy of earnings is the rotation of people, which is seen in customers very sensitive to price, employees that change jobs, and speculators who are looking for easy earnings.
From this perspective, the fundamental task of Marketing must be to develop customer loyalty, for which it must fully comprehend the relationship between the loyalty of customers, employees, and investors. And in order to be effective, Marketing people must incorporate loyalty into the context of the company’s mission.

Marketing and Brand interest

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 14:02:15 +0200

Establishing a brand on the market is the true art of marketing. It’s not the product being consumed, but rather the image one has of it. Building a brand is not simply giving a product a name, but also creating an experience. This means keeping in mind the contact people have with the brand. A brand is a name, but when the brand is powerful, it makes a person think of much more.
The public establishes its preferences with the brand in mind. The brand is the business. We have a great brand awareness that can be built through sponsorships. Making a brand strong requires more than advertising. Brands represent more than the product: they represent a configuration of services, values, and promises made by the seller.
If consumers bought products without caring about services, and all products and benefits were the same, markets would be based exclusively on price. In that case, all companies would have to accept the price the market sets, and only the company with the lowest price would win.

Positioning or Branding: Is that the question?

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 13:57:06 +0200

Recently, the “brand” has become for many people the philosophical cornerstone of business. Its management, called “branding”, has become fashionable. In the last three years in the United States, more than 2,500 books have been published on this topic. Now that we know without a doubt that in the current hypercompetitive and globalized world, the name of the product, service, company, institution, city, country, and even person, is the most important reference to win over the minds of customers, it is advisable to reflect on whether or not this is the cause or effect.

Innovation is the true solution

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 13:11:11 +0200

Implementing a policy of cost reduction in companies has not been an easy process. No company can say it has enjoyed it. But I agree with Bill Dahlberg, president and CEO of The Southern Company. Dahlberg is at the forefront of a revolution in his gigantic public electrical services company. The company is too “heavy”, and Dahlberg has assumed the role of “dietician”. He recognizes that cutting costs only works up to a certain point. And that point doesn’t take you very far.

Reducing costs is not always the solution

Analysts are also becoming skeptical towards cost reduction as a total solution. They claim that in the long-term, the true “bottom line” is the “top line”. Improving sales through new products and the idea of innovation as a growth engine are the true passports to growth. While relative costs must be kept under control and the “grease” kept to a minimum, it is the “builders” who will reap the benefits of Wall Street in the long-term. Cutting jobs is a tough and difficult task. However, in order to create jobs, ingenuity is required.

The abyss of change the business world is facing is the size of the Grand Canyon (and a little bit more). There are many (too many) companies (and individuals) that try to cover that abyss not in 2, but in 22 leaps. (Although, when you can’t be saved from even one leap, it no longer matters how many leaps you take.) Constant improvement in search of perfection is admirable…up to a certain point. But there comes a time, sometimes before you expect it – especially in these times of “Six Sigma” (surely you remember the very high quality standard, popularized by Motorola under this name, that only accepts 3.4 defects out of each 1 million items) – when searching for perfection for perfection’s sake can be a catastrophic mistake.

Clear accounts

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 12:58:18 +0200

Under increasing pressure to obtain results, professionals in Marketing departments must assign increasingly tight budgets in the most efficient way possible, focusing on return on investment, revitalizing traditional practices, and simultaneously developing new abilities.
It’s time to accept the fact that company leadership mistrusts Marketing. The mission of this business area has traditionally been seen as a tactical support to sales, but never as a strategic focus. In times of crisis, the Marketing department is usually among the first to feel the effects of budget cuts – also, its contribution to business growth is not recognized as it should be –, and there are very few Marketing positions with a place on the Board of Directors.
It seems very easy to this department’s directors to argue for a budget of 1 million euros, and they usually face problems when they must show the results of their strategies, both in terms of sales increase and profitability. Meanwhile company directors, under pressure from stockholders and increasingly cutthroat competition, demand them to be financially accountable. How can we make Marketing show quantifiable results? How can we get Marketing departments to be considered with the same confidence, respect, and strategic focus as the rest of the company’s areas?
Therefore, it is time for Marketing people to keep very much in mind the company’s finances, and to make serious and tangible efforts to increase its productivity. If it pays due attention to return on investment, it will be able to make more efficient use of the budget. And if it achieves this goal, Marketing will go from an intuitive art to a precise science.