Winning credibility, delivering results, cultivating long term preference and loyalty – they are all in a day’s work of a marketing professional. Could life be getting any harder?
Maybe or maybe not…..
Most marketing people know the score – it doesn’t really matter what your product or technology is. There’s only a very small window where you can claim to have any sort of advantage (technical, price, market) over your competitor. Your company can’t continue to win simply by launching increasingly sophisticated technologies or by taking existing technologies to new markets. In no time at all, as they say in America, the ‘alligators will be biting at your heels’, well somewhere a bit further north of your heels, but you get the drift.
Now to compound matters, customers are increasingly pressing for ‘services on demand’ wrapped up in exceptional customer service, the likes of which is causing tremors in the corporate world, in other words customers want what they want, when they want it, how they want it and at the price they expect to pay for it and all wrapped up in a customer services blanket of sorts. Is this a Marketing Professional’s nightmare or is it the opportunity to prove once and for all that marketing isn’t just an overhead?
We think it’s the future – and just possibly, for the excellent marketers amongst you, the key to your personal sustainable success.
A new kind of marketing professional will need to step up to this challenge. Their profile will need to include the ability to segment the market and to customise the company’s proposition whilst at the same time understanding the need to manage the financials, as margins will continue to reduce even though customer expectation continues to increase.
What a big ‘ask’!
This new marketer will pen ultimately need to be able to wrap these new propositions in a customer service sort of blanket that manages costs appropriately yet provides the one, the only differentiator in any market – exceptional service.
Hasn’t it been every marketers dream to provide exactly what each and every customer wants? Now’s the time to craft the plan that recognises the needs of key customer segments and provides the services they demand and while you’re at it, it all needs to be done in a way that returns the investment for the company you’re working for.
Are you up for the challenge? Do you need to understand more about the skills you or your staff need to meet this new paradigm? Contact Sandra Malone on 01932 253352.
(marketingmoves is a specialist IT marketing recruitment company that recruits Only the best marketers.Only for IT and Telecoms.)
