Okay, so the first Secret of Marketing Success is to carefully analyze exactly what we’re selling. Not what the product IS, but what it DOES…how does it help the prospect, benefit his or her life? Once we isolate the emotional appeal it becomes a lot easier to hone in on exactly who will be interested in it, and motivated to buy. The second question is…to whom are we selling? Exactly who is our target customer? Some of this is obvious. If we’re selling cosmetics, chances are we can eliminate all the men in the market, or at least most of them. But there are conclusions we can draw about our target prospect that may not be quite so evident. And in many cases neither we nor our client are the prime targets for what we’re selling. For example, until it was acquired, Discount Auto Parts was the largest do it yourself automotive aftermarket retail chain in Florida. For sixteen years, we helped them expand from around 30 locations to well over 500 stores in four states. However, nobody, and I do mean nobody on the client side or agency side had the slightest idea how to work on cars. Some of us could do an oil change if we had to, but mostly we were emphatically not our own target customer. So we spent a lot of time in the stores. We sat in the parking lot, watching what our customers drove up in. We worked behind the counter, talking to customers, seeing what they wore, finding out what they needed, and what they thought was important. We listened to the way they spoke, so we could refine our copy and the tone of our voiceover announcers. Of course, we used some pretty advanced market research, and the results of dozens of focus groups, but there is simply no substitute for getting up close with the people we want to motivate. I think it was Sam Walton who boasted that he didn’t have an MBA, he had an MBWA….management by walking around. On the other end of the spectrum, we had an account that manufactured intraocular lenses, which are used in cataract surgery. In this case, we were faced with the task of reaching ophthalmologists, physicians who work in a very sophisticated, scientific realm. So we put on the scrubs, went into the operating rooms, and watched the lens replacement surgery. We went to the seminars at the annual conventions. Did we understand everything that was going on? Not hardly. But we analyzed the topics of the seminars, we listened to the doctors as they conversed together at lunch, and the understanding we gained helped us to develop extremely effective creative approaches and media strategies. Since our agency has a history of working with restaurant chains, clothing stores, and other multi-outlet retail clients we’ve learned that there’s one other avenue toward getting to know the client. Nobody knows more about them than the people who work in the store…the ones who have contact with customers every day. Whether we’re doing medical practice marketing or retail advertising, this is true no matter what kind of business we’re considering. We’ve sat in meetings with upper management teams at large companies and strategized all day long, but all the strategy in the world isn’t worth a thing unless the people who actually work with customers are on board, and feel as though their customer contact and experience is important and worthwhile. So, to put it briefly, “know thy customer” is Marketing Secret (or Commandment) Number Two. And the best way to do that is to get up close and personal. Coming next…Marketing Secret Number Three.