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Column Archive: Willem's Marketing |
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Marketing during economic downturns |
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2009-02 |
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We are in the midst of difficult times and we may see worse before the global economy gets better. Against this backdrop, what marketing actions are companies pursuing today? Many large companies will invariably cut their marketing budgets. |
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Some Pearls of Marketing Knowledge |
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2006-11 |
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People really, really hate to lose; Men who are not fathers do not like babies; Getting small favors gets you to getting big favors. |
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Maximization of Customer Satisfaction Is Not the Objective |
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2006-10 |
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It is not the goal of marketing to maximize customer satisfaction by discovering what customers really want. |
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The Ways We Think |
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2006-10 |
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Without customers, a company's book value is mostly a fiction or historical artifact. This is why companies must view their business from the perspective of their customers: Theirs is the only perspective that matters. |
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Ask Not What Your Brand Can Do for You...Ask What Your Brand Can Do for Your Customer! |
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2006-04 |
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Unless your brand delivers value to your customers, your brand can not deliver value to your company. |
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About Branding |
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2006-02 |
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How and when Chinese brands, especially in fashion or cosmetics, will achieve the status of premium brands such as L'Oreal or Armani? |
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Talk Value - Not Price II: A City Discount |
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2005-11 |
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You might wonder how you can avoid mentioning price? One way to avoid price is to name a price that is far outside any plausible range. For example, if you sell products on auction, you might start with a price so low that effectively it is not a price. Will this get you a better price in the end? |
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Don't Talk Price - Talk Value: The Rainbow Vacuum Cleaner |
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2005-11 |
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Price is the last P in marketing, not the first P. Good marketing stays away from mentioning the price of a product as long as possible. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and so is value. And it won't be in the eye of the beholder if you don't put it there. So be an expert on the value of your product. Do R&D on the value of your product. Then invest to put that value in the eye, the mind, of the customer, then talk price. Then the seemingly impossible becomes possible. |
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What Do We Do That We Should Not Do |
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2005-11 |
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We assume that our activities in our company add value. Rarely do we consider the possibility that we spend our energy in ways that may actually reduce customer satisfaction while simultaneously increasing our costs. Yet this is a common phenomenon. |
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Where Should You Advertise? Ask Your Customers! |
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2005-10 |
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There are two methods to determine where you should advertise. There is the traditional 'demographic matching method' and there is the more recent 'direct matching method'. Direct matching takes a little more work, at least the first time, but it results in dramatic improvement in efficiency and effectiveness of your advertising effort. |
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What Industry Should We Enter Today |
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2005-08 |
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My thinking about entering new industries is that it doesn't matter so much which industry you go into. What matters is what you do, in that industry, once you are there. |
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A New Idea in Marketing: Honesty |
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2005-08 |
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Most commodities I know of become more valuable when they become more rare. When all marketers are liars the smart thing is to become the only one who is telling the truth. |
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Market leadership |
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2005-07 |
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Research confirms what common sense already tells us: market leaders have all the fun. The reason market leaders have so much fun is that in many industries market leaders not only benefit from lower costs due to economies of scale; market leaders also benefit from higher prices due to product externality. |
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Externality |
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2005-07 |
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Externality is a concept in marketing referring to the characteristic many products have where a product becomes more valuable to an owner of that product when more other people own that product too. |
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Efficiency is Not a Virtue in Brand Management: the case of technology companies |
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2005-06 |
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The cost of the efficiency of using a single brand name for too many different products is very high. One brand name for too many products is like not having a brand name at all. The cost is an inability to communicate with customers. |
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Six Ways to (Better) Taking the Customer's Perspective |
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2005-06 |
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Six exercises increase our ability to see things right and to do things right in marketing: Surround yourself with reality; Talk to your ex-customers; Recruit from the ranks of customers; Let your customers help you manage; Be your own customer; Be your competitor's customer too. |
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It is Better to Give Than to Receive |
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2005-05 |
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"It is Better to Give Than to Receive." These are words from the Bible. Surprisingly, these words also reflect the business policies of some very successful companies and entrepreneurs. |
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Marketing in Seller Market |
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2005-05 |
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It is a wrong assumption that marketing is unnecessary in a seller's market. Over time, inevitably, the market turns into a buyer's market again. When product differentiation is not possible, customer segmentation becomes especially important. |
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