Why Understanding is Critical to Marketing

Photo by D koi on Unsplash

Imagine you’ve been dropped off in the town square of a foreign country. You don’t know where you are, you can’t speak the language, and you don’t know how to get to your destination. 

Imagine how you feel at this moment, having no clue what to do next.

If you’ve ever seen the movie The Game - there is a scene with Michael Douglas where he is drugged and taken in a box to a cemetery in Mexico and I imagine this is how he felt when he awoke.

This is the same feeling that business owners experience when thinking about what marketing might work to attract new customers to their business. 

Instead of learning the new language, so that they can ask directions or read the direction signs, many business owners just guess at the right answer, and start trying to communicate on any and all channels about their business. They talk about whatever they think customers want to hear. These customers - like the residents of the foreign village - don’t respond to these messages as they are not in a language they understand.

You’re about to get the key to open the first door to successful marketing. 

Understanding is critical to marketing. As critical as knowing the language, being able to read the signs or ask for directions, so you can get where you want to go. 

When I say understanding, what do I mean?

I mean understanding the following four things about your prospective customers - their needs, wants, behaviours and attitudes. I also refer to understanding the market in which you operate and the other businesses against which you compete. 

You build understanding by doing RESEARCH on your customers, your market and your competitors. 

Collecting information and data about these will allow you to approach your customers with communication on the right channels, saying the right things that will get them to respond. It will enable you to find a place in the market, where you can compete successfully against other businesses and make a profit. 

You can collect information through research on the internet, by quizzing AI software, and by performing surveys of the type of customer you want to attract. 

Understanding is so important, and will save you so much time and money, that it is the first door you have to open, before you do anything else in your marketing effort. 

Armed with data, information, knowledge and understanding, you can take the next step towards building an effective and successful marketing program. 

Try doing it without understanding puts you right back in that town square in a foreign country with no idea how to take the next step and no idea of what direction you need to head. 

I recommend you do the work to RESEARCH your market, customers, and competition and prepare yourself for success. 

If you’d like to know more about how to do this, read my books - Marketing has no Off Switch or Get your Marketing Cooking - both available on AMAZON. https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B07DHG3RY4.

Hunter Leonard is the Founder & CEO of Blue Frog Marketing - a strategic consultancy with clients in Australia, New Zealand and the USA. Hunter is highly respected in the industry, having achieved spectacular revenue growth results for his clients in the order of several billion dollars. He has written 11 books and delivered over 900 seminars and workshops on marketing since 2001. When not helping clients, he can be found playing his Mason Guitar, cooking up a storm or walking the forests, beaches and national parks of his home town of Coffs Harbour. www.bluefrogmarketing.com.au