10 Marketing Commandments
10 Marketing Commandments

Marketing Commandment Number 1. Treat your customers with love and your competitors with respect. 

Why? What’s in it for you?

  • It helps to create brand loyalty, making them much more likely to be repeat  buyers.
  • They’ll be more likely to share positive reviews on your products or services. 
  • They’ll give you honest feedback which enables you to develop and grow. 

Why should you respect your competitors?

  • You might learn something from them. They’ve been or are where you are, trying to solve the same problems. 
  • They have the power to affect your business so always be prepared for what may come from them. 
  • Sometimes competitors can be your customer. 

So take a look at your competitors today and see what they’re up to. 

Think about how you could show your customers some love. 

Marketing Commandment Number 2 – Be ready for transformation and change

The pandemic taught us this important lesson. Change is always just around the corner. 

We know it’s the OT part of SWOT, the stuff that can mess up all our lovely thought out plans. 

But how can you be more ready for it? 

  1. Be open minded and receptive to stuff that happens. 
  2. Stop and think about what has actually happened, is it as bad as you think or is some of it good change?
  3. Be proactive and accelerate your development. 
  4. Reach out to your social networks. 
  5. Look at your personal resilience, how can you develop the mental preparedness (is that a word) for change?

We know we CAN and DO change when we have to, if we are ready for it, that’s when your business will thrive. 

Marketing Commandment Number 3 – make your values clear and support them. 

Why? 

People like people that are like them. ‘You’re like me, so you must be cool’

So how do you know if someone is like you? They display it in their behaviour and their characteristics. 

The same applies to a business. People like businesses that stand for the same things as them. Who behave the way they behave. These are essentially values. 

Demonstrating your values, helps customers connect with you and resonate with you. So there for know, like and trust you. 

Are you more or less likely to do business with a company you trust?

Marketing Commandment Number 4 – focus on the segment that gives you the greatest benefit. 

Yes yes yes, this is something I recently put into practice myself. And it’s not just about what benefits me, but also what is the greatest benefit to my customer as well. 

I am in my happy place when it comes to marketing for engineering and manufacturing businesses. 

I therefor bring my best self to these type of customers. 

That’s not to say I can’t bring it for other types of businesses but imagine marketing to everyone, how big is that mountain to climb? 

If you can find your niche, (overcome the FOMO eek) and focus your marketing, not only will you be more successful but it will take the stress out of the situation too. 

Marketing Commandment Number 5 – price fairly to convey your quality. 

I’m not gonna pretend I’m the expert on pricing strategies. 

I very much believe that pricing is sector specific, there are a lot of intricate details around pricing to consider but here are some of the main strategies that people use around pricing. 

  1. Competitor based pricing – working out your pricing based on your competitors
  2. Cost-Plus Pricing – what does it cost, then add your profit
  3. Dynamic pricing – airlines use this method to price according to demand
  4. Skimming Pricing Strategy – launch at a higher rate to capture the early adopters
  5. Penetration Pricing Strategy – dropping your price to gain market share and gradually increasing 
  6. Premium Pricing Strategy – pricing based on how your product or service is perceived or how you would like it to be perceived
  7. Project pricing strategy – rather than hourly rate. Serving people with a flat fee
  8. Value pricing Strategy – based on what customer is prepared to pay. 

There are so many strategies to look at when you are pricing your products or services – what is your pricing strategy?

Marketing Commandment Number 6 – help potential customers connect with your company and it’s products. 

How?

The main way to help your customers connect with your company, is to get personal. 

This is across everything, all the various media that you communicate in. 

Whether it’s social media, email, telephone, BE pREsENt. 

Be available, answer back to people. Give your views, ask for feedback? Be a human!! 

What’s your view on bot response versus actual person response???

Marketing Commandment Number 7 – look upon your customers as a customer for life. 

What does a customer for life look like? 

To me, this means a customer with loyalty. Someone who will come back to you time and time again and do business with you.  

And what makes a customer loyal?

What makes a person loyal? 

  • Being properly treated
  • Good communication 
  • Feeling valued 
  • Gaining some reward 
  • Receiving good feedback

What can you do to increase customer loyalty? 

Marketing Commandment Number 8 – view each business as a service because each product is tied to a service.

At first I struggled with what that even meant but the more I thought about it, it’s saying that even as a product provider you provide a service. 

In fact your product would have to be pretty damn special for people to put up with rubbish delivery and not seek to go elsewhere. 

The process of bringing a product from concept to delivery is so complex and every step of the way it has the potential to unravel and give the customer a negative experience and therefor damaging your brand. 

So even if you’re looking polished and your product is the bee’s knees, if you haven’t nailed your delivery (the service part), non of it is going to matter. 

How can you ensure your customer experience matches the quality of the product they’re going to receive?

Marketing Commandment Number 9 – Improve your business processes every day.

As a new (ish) business, you are always learning. New clients, new demands on your time, how to be more efficient, more professional, more protected, deliver a better service, create better content, do better marketing…

Yes we know we should be on social media, developing relationships, doing more with our marketing but its a matter of time.

Should you reduce the amount of marketing you do, or should you find a better system or process that enables you to do the right amount, quickly and efficiently?

(Or should you hire The Design Grove to help you do it?)

Either way, some very clever people have invented all manner of tools, apps and systems that are designed to help you with your processes. The key to it is finding the right one.

If you need any help with managing your marketing systems, you know where to come, but if you need help with other systems, business, finance, procurement, etc, let me know because I know lots of people who can help with that. 

Marketing Commandment Number 10 – Consider all aspects, not just finance, when making a decision.

I have quandary’s every day about things that affect my business, often the ones hardest to deal with are the ones with financial implications, but how can you effectively make better decisions?

  1. They have to be aligned with your goals – when you have a decision to make, go back to your goals and decide, will it make the boat go faster?
  2. Weigh up the pros and cons – research all your options, but be careful not to overwhelm
  3. Experience counts – whether that’s your own experience or that of others, ask for help!
  4. Go with your gut – sometimes things feel right to us. Advice and research aside you might have to be ok to go against the grain… as long as it meets point 1!

Whenever I’m struggling with a decision, and even if I’ve followed these steps, sometimes just doing something that clears your mind can really help to gain clarity over the situation. 

Don’t do it alone.

It’s really important to point out that to successfully action all of these commandments you will need the support of all your stakeholders, especially your supply chain, as the people who are capable of affecting your customers’ journey with your business.

Get them on board with your approach to all of these things to ensure that you have every chance of success.

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