Your Marketing Strategy - Delivering The Goods

Your Marketing Strategy - Delivering the Goods

There are three constants in life . . . change, choice and principles. —Stephen R. Covey

WHERE’S THE BEEF?

As a marketing firm, my organization is sometimes asked to market products that . . . well . . . honestly, they’re meatless. They sound good, but in reality, they don’t deliver much in the way of substance. It’s all sizzle and no steak.

At the end of the day the product has to be at least as good as the messages promise. As Debbie, our executive vice president of retail strategies, says, “Products rule.” What she means is that as a marketing firm we can do our research, develop strong plans, design great packaging, and develop innovative campaigns, but if the product doesn’t deliver to the consumers’ expectations, the best marketing in the world can’t save it. The experience users have with the product trumps marketing. And, of course, the same goes with us.

As we close this series on developing our marketing strategies, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that, in the end, we have to deliver the goods too. In other words, we’d better be consistently living out the traits we tout in our value statement. I have lived long enough to have blown this more than once. When we fail to deliver on the expectations we have worked so hard to establish, I can tell you from experience that we will tarnish our reputations.

Envy, gossip, negativity, prejudice, grudges, flirting, cursing, cheating, lying, manipulating, blaming, denying, backstabbing, and judging are just a few of the ways we undermine our brand and unravel our personal marketing strategies.

If you have a strong brand, choose to stand firm in order to protect it. If your brand has been weakened, it is within your power to change it. Because in the end it is only the principles by which we choose to live that fuel our ability to deliver the goods.

Let me hear of your unfailing love each morning, for I am trusting you. Show me where to walk, for I give myself to you. (Psalm 143:8)

I don’t know about you, but I’m going to ensure that there is meat with my sizzle.