If you look at startup culture, you immediately notice that demand creation and conversion are synchronized into the everyday of all staff. This likely has much to do with the fact that there are often but a handful of staff building the business, wearing multiple hats across sales and marketing. Surely classic organizations can and should take a page from this playbook, collapsing silos and focusing on the end consumer need but it doesn't happen much. Yet.
It seems that many traditional marketing organizations are prisoners of deeply embedded institutional behaviors, silos and annualized expectations. Consider the marketing team who has a calendar of key retail initiatives each year and an entire portfolio of brands all cued up to deliver unique programs against them. In the case of packaged good for example, is sales really meant to go into a retailer and say "I've got 4 brand programs all with the same seasonal moment in mind that I'd like you to support"? When asked "Why do you do it this way?" one marketer in the beverage space responded "This is how we do it every year because it's what sales and retailers expect".
What retailers actually want, in order to provide their support, is strong demand for your product and a decent margin to boot. If you drive people to stores to in search of your product, the retailer will feel compelled to carry it no matter the time of year and you will have a much easier road to closing the sale.
When challenger brands create social content, show up at events or, dare I say, air a TV ad, it's almost always doing double duty of consideration AND conversion. Isn't all their marketing a form of shopper marketing? Isn't it attempting to make a sale?
Marketing's job should be to create enough value for people across their purchase journey from trigger (I need new jeans) to searching (what styles are in, what do people say about them, and are they for people like me?) to purchase (these are the right ones at a fair price) to experiencing (great wear and hold up over time) to advocating (tell everyone about my great experience) to re-purchasing (I need new color or style of these).
Being the brand people want you to be doesn't have as much to do with a calendar of programs as it does with deeply understanding what people want from a product like yours. Demonstrate that you can make their life a touch better if they choose to bring you into their world, and then remind them along the way, why it was a great decision.
Perhaps spending a bit more time on:
- What triggers cause people to begin looking for a product?
- How do they go about finding a solution?
- What influences their search along the way?
- How do they determine value for a particular product type?
- What, if any, barriers exist at the moment of purchase that might prevent a sale (store navigation, knowledgeable staff, competitor pricing etc.)?
- Once they've purchased, how do they feel about the product?
- Do they talk about it with friends?
- What is the length of time to purchasing another product in this category?
There's little doubt that getting off the "but this is how it's always done" hamster wheel is really hard but if Amazon's purchase and immediate changes at Whole Foods showcase anything, it's that business as usual might be the biggest threat. Just ask the other grocery retailers. #actlikeachallenger