Selling is out. A sales pitch is more likely to drive the consumer away. Creating the need is what drive sales and all marketing activities are today focused on making the consumer feel a pang if not having the product or service on offer. You maybe completely satisfied with your old refrigerator, a faithful companion for a decade or more but suddenly you realize that your fruits and vegetables are loosing their nutrition, that the food stored in overstuffed compartments is not fresh enough and that you must spend afresh for the sake of fresh and crunchy veggies that you want your family to savour. Not that your family complained of any loss hygiene or nutrition in the way of storage of foods – for now you know a better (?) option is available, one you cannot do without.
As the old saying goes need is the mother of all inventions – today need is the prime force in getting a consumer hooked. A service that hitherto was never thought required suddenly becomes essential – your organizational newsletter for example. Someone points out what it lacks and how you fail to engage your employees and stakeholders with the religiously sent out drab looking formal email every fortnight, reveals your pain points and the success factors of your competition in the same space and your need for a better communication strategy is exposed. And, once the need is established sooner or later the service will be consumed.
Today a push marketing – spaming mailbox with unsolicited mails or sending unrequited sms – is more likely to be discarded for most products and services without even a glance. How many mails and messages you delete without even reading the content? Marketing an event or a service or even an academic program rides on generating need and create aspiration. For an event, the participant must aspire to be seen there. Building this aspiration depends on a lot of concerted effort other than advertising. Creating a talking point and then projecting the program / product / service as a niche one that takes you to a level above where you stand today is what every marketer sweats at.
For a brand in the making selling the need for its offerings to compete with the established brand is a more strategic approach. While the market leader will play on the loyalty and long established repute, the new entrant can always entice the end consumer with its different approach – old wine in same bottle may not sell, but the same wine in a tetra pack might – don’t you need a handy tetra pack over the old fashioned bottle! Also, for the uninitiated consumer the new brand can offer a bridge to reach the position he always aspired. Say for instance an established automobile brand can be given a run for its money once a new entrant offers more features, affordability and easy accessible finance options – giving those who always dreamt of owning a four wheeler, needed it over their old bikes, an opportunity to move a step ahead. Create the need and then be the one, and if possible the only one to be able to fulfil it.
The marketing effort today is not only aimed at selling the product or service but to establish the organization as an innovator, a thought leader. Social media as such plays an important role in this game, opening up whole new avenues, bringing the marketer and the target audience on the same platform, affording greater connect facilitating wider interaction. The marketplace today is a different turf, rules of the game are changing and so are the referees! What worked yesterday will not yield today and tomorrow is another story altogether. Its challenging, its exciting, it’s a whole new experience everyday.
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