More marketing mistakes to avoid [ ] Product focus vs customer focus: You don’t believe me? This still happens. It is easy to believe in products. They sit there, like a stone, saying “I am your product. Love me or die.”
Customers come and go and leave no trace. They disguise themselves. And besides that, they’re scary. They might say something baaad about our product. And we love our product. How many of you meet customers, spend time with them, listen in on the call centre calls, read the letters that come in. Admit it. None of you do. But how many of you spend your time getting to know and then talking about your product? All of you? Case closed.


[ ] No proactive PR plan – A big mistake, this one, because you have public relations, whether you manage it or not. The media and observers are spreading stories about you unchecked. You have no power to stop them. All you can do is try to direct the content of those stories towards the positive side. Your most powerful public relations is generated by the actions of your organization everyday in contact with stakeholder groups. A truly ethical, customer-centric company would rarely find itself the subject of bad PR.

[ ] No contact management strategy – How much money is wasted because client-facing staff do not collect and make available or do not have at their fingertips the essential data about the individuals they hope to impress? Data is flying past you every moment of the day, especially the soft, personal data a good sales person remembers, like the client’s favourite entertainment, family background, etc. Tactfully used, this data can build and seal relationships forever. And gathered and managed through a tidy piece of software, it can empower one representative to have deep relations with a large number of individuals.  ¶ 3:16 AM