Marketing: OutThink, OutSmart, OutPerform

Marketing is one of those things that is like air, it is everywhere, you doing it, they doing it and everybody is doing it and apparently everything is a platform for marketing. Which makes me ponder whether marketing was initially designed for what it is doing today. What is it doing today that is completely different from the golden principles of the 4P's and 5C's, and the answer is nothing, in fact it has enhanced what the principles originally defined. Well, to be politically correct, marketing agencies have taken these principles and blown them up to ideas that constantly revolutionizes the way consumers buy. Marketing has become so good that agencies know what will people like, before they like it. Can we really be that lucky. Off course not, nobody can know what people will like before they like it, it is just a result of some really good research and creative insight in the agencies part.

Let's first dive into the importance of competition, because this is the reason why marketing agencies like Enlyne Branding exist. I was in the grocery store last week, when I could not find the brand of bread I wanted. And I asked around and got one of the staff members to check in the back in the stock shelves. They still could not find the brand of bread I wanted. I stood at the bread counter for 2 minutes contemplating whether I should buy a different brand or go somewhere else to find the right bread for me. I left and decided to look somewhere else for the particular bread, then I thought to myself. Is the competition that tough, that there are fierce competitors trying to get my attention to buy their loaf of bread, and I would not settle for any other brand.

This is what marketing has done, it has made something as small and seemingly insignificant as bread, and turned it into a powerful brand. On the shelf there were at least 7 other kinds of brands, but I was looking for this particular brand. So I asked myself, what is it that caused me to be such a loyal customer to a particular brand. And it hit me, the "Experience" and often we don't remember why we like something, but we just like it. It is because of effective marketing, where they don't only sell the product but also the experience. You were not just shown some brand and the differentiation was the price, but there is something about the advert that you related to. And all thanks to competition, companies are forcing agencies to come with creative campaigns that lure consumers and other businesses alike into becoming brand loyalists.

Now that we know what the driving force is, does the various marketing principles and strategies able to keep up with the modern day competition. And again the answer is yes, and this is one of the amazing things about principles, is that they are timeless. They are relevant even decades later, even when times change and the face of business is not what it was years ago. The 4P's are still relevant today as they were decades ago, although some schools of thought replaced the 4P's with the 4E's, which are explained as follows:

• Experience replaced Product
• Everyplace replaced Place
• Exchange replaced Price, and
• Evangelism replaced Promotion

They all sound like the same thing to me, there was really some thought when Jerome McCarthy came up with the 4P's. The standard today is that you make the client experience the product, the place does not necessarily mean a geographical area now, but where you exposing your brand for your customers to notice it, price will always be a determining factor in your business, when you understand this you will be able to exchange services into cash flow. Promotion and Evangelism are the same thing, evangelism just has faith in it and hijacked  from the christian marketers or recruiters. 

Strategy is also one of the oldest words in the history of language and it is still relevant today and even more profitable for your brand, if properly done. And to have a profitable strategy, you need to do a lot of homework, and doing your homework includes doing a lot of online searching, facilitating focus groups, running those expo's, writing articles, analyzing those stats and finally taking those risks. A strategy that has no risk, will produce mediocre results, and risky ones exceed expectations, or flop. Not only developing a strategy, but also strategically applying it to make the brand profitable and since the business world is fueled by profits, the bigger the profits, I can assure you is definitely THE BETTER. 

In closing, when your marketing is rich in principle, bearing in mind what the competitor is doing and developing a strategy that is profitable, then, and only then can you say to you OuThinked them, Outsmarted them, and OutPerformed them.