Would you like to be the company that your customers turn to for information and solutions to problems? The company that existing AND potential customers think of as soon as they have a problem in your specialty, like Intuit for accounting software and FedEx for shipping? A company that is widely known to be the go-to player when an issue arises?
I have some local companies that I turn to when I have a problem. My local hardware store because they help me solve a myriad of home repair problems, whether the sale is a thirty-five cent bolt or an $80 dollar tool. My accountant that I pay to do my taxes, but that gives me solid and reliable advice throughout the year.
These companies are successful because they defined their business in terms of the overall value they create for their customers, not just the value of their products.
Fifty years ago Theodore Levitt posed the question “What business are you in?” when he wrote Marketing Myopia for the Harvard Business Review.
He wrote the article because he saw many businesses failing because they were falling into the same trap. He saw firms defining themselves as companies that sold a product instead of as companies that served customers. This trap caused companies to believe they could “outdo rivals simply by improving on what we’re already doing” and by “organizing around the technology rather than the consumer.”
It’s not surprising that this focus on product happens, especially in industrial and technology companies. A relentless focus on research and development keeps the focus on products. And companies in these sectors are more comfortable working on the things they can control – product research, engineering, and production. Or, as Levitt says, “the lab, the shop and the books.”
If your Marketing group is part of a company like this, what can you do?
Marketing can define itself as being in the “information marketing” business instead of the “product selling” business.
What information?
Let the buyer tell you.
Learn the steps that the buyer takes in its journey to solve its problem. Provide the information and answers to questions that they have at each step of the journey. You’ll create value for the buyer at each stage, establish trust and rapport, and put obstacles in the way of your competitors. Competitors who are still myopically focused primarily on selling their product.
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