When building a marketing plan, one of the key choices that must be made early is a deceptively simple one that most fail to recognise.
- Are you setting out to serve existing demand?
- Are you setting out to generate new demand?
Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, when I look at a marketing program, I have no idea which the marketer has chosen. Usually this is because they have jumped the early and challenging question of translating the strategic objectives back into the planning of marketing activities. Marketing is simply the means by which the strategic objective is translated into a series of actions which are communicated to those who might be interested in paying you to consume your product.
There is of course a third option: attempt to do both. However, to do both effectively requires a specific strategic choice. Allowing the ‘do both’ option to become the default of not deciding where the priority lies is commercial cowardice. It leads in most cases to sub-optimal allocation of the limited available resources.
Header cartoon credit: Dilbert demonstrates that choices must be made for clarity.
