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Popular
The Macro Environment – Six Forces in the Environment of...
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Characteristics of the Product Life Cycle Stages and their Marketing...
Cost-based Pricing – Pricing based on Costs
Categories of New Products – What is a New Product?
Market Segmentation Criteria – How to segment markets
Marketing-Insider
  • Home
  • Updates
  • Marketing Explained
    • I: Marketing and the marketing process
      • Definition: What is Marketing?
      • The Marketing Process
      • The 5 Marketing Concepts
      • The Marketing Strategy
        • Market Segmentation
        • Market Targeting
        • Differentiation and Positioning
          • Differentiation
          • Positioning
      • The Marketing Mix – The 4 Ps
      • Marketing Instruments
      • Portfolio Analysis: Boston Matrix
      • Portfolio Planning: Growth and Downsizing
      • SWOT Analysis
      • Definition of Product and Service
    • II: Understanding the marketplace
      • The Macro Environment
      • The Buyer Black Box – Buyer’s Characteristics
      • The Buyer Decision Process
      • B2B Market Characteristics
      • Customer Lifetime Value
      • Customer Relationship Groups
    • III: Designing a marketing strategy
      • How to create a Marketing Plan – 8 Steps
      • The Consumer Product
        • Three Levels of Product
        • 4 Types of Consumer Products
        • Different Types of Consumer Products
      • Product Line and Product Mix Decisions
        • Individual Product Decisions
        • Product Line Decisions
        • Product Mix Decisions
      • New Product Development (NPD)
        • The New Product Development Process
        • New Product Development Strategies
      • Pricing Strategies
        • What is a Price?
        • 3 Major Pricing Strategies
          • Customer Value-based Pricing
          • Cost-based Pricing
        • Additional Pricing Considerations
          • New Product Pricing
          • Product Mix Pricing Strategies
          • Price Adjustment Strategies
          • Initiating price changes
      • Product Life Cycle (PLC)
        • Product Life Cycle Stages (PLC)
        • Product Life Cycle Strategies
      • Branding Decisions
      • Characteristics of Services
    • Interesting
      • New View on Marketing
      • Next-Gen Marketing Tool: Virtual Reality
      • Advertising Evolution
      • The 5 Don’ts of Presentations
      • Successful Mobile Marketing
      • Why Most Marketing Strategies Fail
      • How to create a Marketing Plan – 8 Steps
      • How to write a good Marketing Plan
      • 5 Don’ts of LinkedIn
      • Using Social Media in Marketing
    • SEO
      • What is SEO?
      • How Search Engines work
      • How to do SEO?
      • SEO Rules for 2016
  • About Marketing-Insider
Monthly Archives

November 2019

    10 Deadly Sins of Marketing and how to Avoid them
    Marketing Explained

    10 Deadly Sins of Marketing and how to Avoid them

    by Maximilian Claessens 21st November 2019
    written by Maximilian Claessens

    There are many things that can go wrong in marketing. You should be aware of the deadly sins of marketing to avoid them. If they happen, however, it is not all over. Let’s take a look at what can happen and what you can do to fix it.

    The 10 Deadly Sins of Marketing

    In the following, we will take a look at the 10 deadly sins of marketing that indicate that the marketing program you are running is in trouble. Along every deadly sin, we will consider how to recognize them, and of course how to approach potential solutions.

    Deadly Sin 1: The company is mal-focused: it is not sufficiently market focused and customer driven.

    Signs: There are signs of poor identification of market segments, inappropriate prioritization of market segments, lack of market segment managers, employees who think it is the job of marketing and sales to deal with customers, and no incentives to treat customers well.

    Solutions: The firm should use advanced market segmentation techniques, prioritize relevant segments, specialize the sales force, develop a clear system of company values, and foster more customer-focused thinking in employees. Also, it should make it as easy as possible for customers to reach the company and respond quickly to any inquiry.

    Deadly Sin 2: The company does not understand its target customers.

    Signs: The firm does not really know who the target customer is. The latest study of customers is a few years old. Customers are not buying the product like they once did, and competitors’ products are selling better. There are many customer returns and complaints.

    Solutions: The firm should conduct more sophisticated and more frequent consumer research, use advanced analytical techniques, establish customer panels, use professional customer relationship software, and do data mining. Big data analysis should be used.

    Deadly Sin 3: The company does not monitor its competitors.

    Signs: Nobody actually knows who the true competitors are. The firm focuses on near competitors, misses distant competitors and disruptive technologies, and lacks a professional system for gathering and managing competitive intelligence.

    Solutions: The company should establish a dedicated department for competitive intelligence, hire competitors’ people, monitor technological advancements that might affect the company, and prepare offerings like those of competitors.

    Deadly Sin 4: The company does not properly manage stakeholder relationships.

    Signs: Employees, dealers, investors and other stakeholders are not happy; and good suppliers do not approach the firm.

    Solutions: The company should move from zero-sum thinking to positive-sum thinking; and do better in managing employees, supplier relations, distributors, dealers, and investors.

    Deadly Sin 5: The company is poor at finding new opportunities.

    Signs: The firm’s success relies on a product that was developed long ago and there is little innovation. It has not identified any exciting new opportunities for years, and any or most new ideas it has launched have failed.

    Solutions: The firm should set up a system for stimulating the flow of new ideas, for instance by inviting employees to participate in idea generation.

    Deadly Sin 6: The company’s marketing planning process is inefficient.

    Signs: The marketing plan does not have the right components. The firm is not able to estimate the financial implications of strategies, and there is no contingency planning.

    Solutions: The company should establish a standard format including a situational analysis, SWOT, objectives, strategies, budgets, and controls. In addition, it may help to run an annual marketing awards program with prizes for best plans and performance.

    Deadly Sin 7: Product and service policies are not specific enough.

    Signs: There are too many products and some of them are not profitable, and the company is poor at cross-selling products and services.

    Solutions: The firm should establish a system to track weak products and drop them. It should introduce an offer and prices at different levels; and improve processes for cross-selling.

    Deadly Sin 8: Brand-building and communications skills are weak.

    Signs: The company is rather unknown to the target market. The brand is not perceived as distinctive. The company allocates budgets to the same marketing tools it has been using for year, and there is little evaluation of the ROI impact of these tools.

    Solutions: The firm needs to improve brand-building strategies and the measurement of results, then shift money into the most effective marketing instruments. Marketers should be required to estimate the ROI impact in advance of implementing marketing tactics.

    Deadly Sin 9: The company is not organized for effective and efficient marketing.

    Signs: Marketing staff is not familiar with up-to-date marketing strategies (e.g. social media marketing), and there is insufficient communication between marketing, sales and other departments.

    Solutions: The firm should appoint a strong leader and build new skills in the marketing department. In addition, it is necessary to improve relationships between marketing and other departments.

    Deadly Sin 10: The company is not using technology right.

    Signs: There is little use of the internet, an outdated sales system, no decision-support models, and no marketing dashboards.

    Solutions: The firm needs to use the internet more, improve the sales system, and try to automate routine decisions. In addition, it should develop a formal marketing decision process and implement marketing dashboards.

    As you can see, the presence of one or more of these deadly sins of marketing does not mean that it is all over. However, early detection is key to implement powerful solutions and avoid the sins in the future.

    21st November 2019
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  • Marketing Explained

    How to use Amazon for Marketing? – Ways to use Amazon for marketing your products and businesses

    by Maximilian Claessens 11th November 2019
    by Maximilian Claessens 11th November 2019

    Amazon is a great place for firms to market their products. With its unique search engine, it offers plenty of opportunities for optimizing your product pages, while also allowing the…

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Popular

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