The 3 lane expressway to success

Why is this approach better than traditional marketing?

The main 'threads' my clients find particularly useful are:

• Always keeping an eye on the destination
• Working with an independent facilitator helps everyone to align with clear vision and goals, and to stay on track, moving forward together. This works well  for strategic, business and marketing planning and, depending on your own resources, the implementation and management of these plans.
• Real, good market information
• Even individuals need to do research, fact-finding and seek customer feedback. Businesses must be constantly aware of how their customers perceive them.  Everyone in any organisation should be aware that they can help by asking the right people the right questions, and knowing how to use the answers.  This is easy to learn and satisfying to do.  Your staff can become your marketing specialists.
• Formal market research can use focus groups, personal interviews, phone interviews, desk research, questionnaires and CSM – Customer Satisfaction Measurement.  These tools are best used by an independent provider.  Good market research doesn't cost the earth and quickly pays for itself.
• Applications include market place analysis, client and competitor feedback, product testing, customer satisfaction auditing surveys and community consultation programmes.
• Gold mining
• See your value through your customers’ eyes, and reflect it back through your staff attitudes, service response, as well as product quality.   The 'cycle of value' explains why marketing is simply understanding customer problems and needs, identifying the value of your solution to them, and communicating your value to them in their terms.

These three threads are complementary – planning almost always calls for more information – and research almost always throws up areas where planning and/or a totally fresh approach is required.

Gold mining - the ' value' philosophy

Gold mining – see your value through your customers’ eyes, and reflect it back through your staff attitudes, service response, as well as product quality.

Almost every aspect of organisational life - whether in business, ‘not-for-profit’ organisation, education, profession, healthcare or anything – is fundamentally about exchanging value.

Humans give and receive value from one another all the time, and make decisions based on their perception of the value of the outcome.

For example, marketing is knowing what your customers really need to solve their problems, and then showing them how your products and services can be of value to them.

Marketing is all about understanding the value – human value and product value - that you are offering to your customer, which means:

• understanding your customer’s needs, now and in future
• fine tuning your product to suit those needs
• conveying to the customer the message that your product will solve his problem.

Internal research, marketplace research and customer satisfaction monitoring give you the feedback you need to achieve this understanding.

One of the rewards of giving value is that you gain recognition of your own value.  This results in a wonderfully satisfying ‘cycle of value’.

People who are valued, value themselves, and give more value to their customers.