Ten Deadly Marketing Sins - Philip Kotler

Marketing is an essential part of a company's success. However, we often make small mistakes that can cause big problems and negatively affect our results. Philip Kotler gives come tips to leverage your results in the book "Ten Deadly Marketing Sins"!

In this summary we've separated the 10 deadly sins of marketing, they are mistakes that are crucial to our results and if we don't get over them, they can lead us to failure.

That's why it is important to you know and so avoid them. Philip is known as a Marketing guru, and there is no better way to learn something if not with the best person in the area!

Got interested to increase your incomes with some marketing strategies? Stay with us in this summary and discover how!

About the book "Ten Deadly Marketing Sins"

"Why do 75% of new products, services, and businesses fail? And why do marketing campaigns no longer deliver the same results?"

Seeking to understand why companies struggle to deliver the best results from their marketing industry, Philip Kotler teaches what to do, what not to do, and how to identify and solve marketing problems.

Published in 2004, this book shows that "the real role of marketing is to identify opportunities and create results-focused business strategies."

Nowadays, marketing presents itself as an area that should be related to all other areas of the company, acquiring a holistic characteristic.

In parallel, we face issues such as competitors around the world, difficulty in building customer loyalty, and mass marketing, which is becoming less and less effective.

With this scenario in mind, Kotler explains the biggest mistakes companies make and teaches how we can overcome these challenges.

About the author Philip Kotler

Known as "Pope of Marketing" and "Father of Modern Marketing", Philip Kotler holds a degree in economics and is a professor of international marketing at Northwestern University in the USA. His studies have laid the foundation for what Marketing is today.

Kotler has been awarded numerous awards and is also the author of bestsellers, such as:

• "Marketing 3.0";
• "Marketing 4.0".

To whom is this book indicated?

Reading is recommended not only for who is a marketer, but for all employees of a company.

So if you work with marketing or other areas that have customers, suppliers or other stakeholder contacts, we indicate this book, as the author presents a broad concept that treats marketing as a joint effort of all with a primary focus: the client.

Main ideas of the book "Ten Deadly Marketing Sins"

• Marketing should be a joint responsibility of all areas of the company;
• The customer is the main focus of the company, but many companies don't consider it;
• Poor market research and marketing plans can have bad consequences;
• Efficient marketing depends on a well-organized business.

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Overview: The company is not sufficiently focused on the market and customer-oriented

The first sign is a lack of focus on both the market and the customer. And we know these are key points for the success of your business.

Insufficient Market Focus

The market is constantly evolving. New technologies and methods are emerging, and we need to be prepared for these updates.

That said, we realize the importance of not making the mistake of don't focus sufficiently on the market in which your business is inserted, because, without proper focus, the segments are not correctly identified. They are also not prioritized and the sales team won't be able to customize the service according to the characteristics of each segment.

This can not happen! You need to know your market like the palm of your hand. So be aware of these signals, and if you find that you don't understand how your market works, and what your customers are doing, you need to address this issue.

How to solve it?

• Use advanced segmentation techniques: Address new and complex ways of segmenting your market by selecting variables that can be correlated, generate benefits, and make it easier to identify new customers;
• Prioritize segments: Market segmentation can generate multiple segments, so set a priority order for the most important ones, which will yield the best results;
• Have a specialized sales team: Because the segments are different, develop your sales team to specialize in serving each one according to their needs.

Insufficient customer orientation

The market should not be your only focus. There is one member of your entire sales process that is the most important variable: the customer.

Many companies find that the customer is only the marketing and commercial task. And they are completely wrong!

The customer is the driving force of your business, and satisfied customers should be the main goal of all employees, from the CEO to the suppliers.

So if your business doesn't focus completely on the customer, doesn't encourage the "customer culture" and doesn't encourage employees to treat customers well, you are committing a marketing sin.

How to solve it?

• Customer is top of the hierarchy: customer desires and needs must be a priority, and the business hierarchy must function with the primary objective of satisfying those customers;
• Develop "customer awareness": The customer's vision as a key point should be disseminated not only among all employees but with everyone involved in the process, such as suppliers and partners. Therefore, promote activities that will produce this mindset in everyone;
• Make it easy to contact: make customer and business contact more efficient and effective. The customer must be able to contact your company through different channels and you must have a high standard for answers, quick to answer questions, suggestions, and complaints.

Overview: The company does not fully understand its target customers

But just focusing on the customer is not enough. You need to understand it, know your preferences, opinions, perceptions about your product and even complaints.

However, when your company doesn't research the public through market research, it would have a high level of customer complaints and consequently lose some of them.

To overcome this challenge, Philip Kotler says you need to research, analyze and interact with your customers.

How to solve it?

• Do better market research: Seek more information about clients using in-depth methods such as in-depth interviews and discussion groups. But always understand which method is best suited to your goals;
• Do analysis: use analytical techniques to assess consumer needs, preferences, perceptions, and behavior;
• Create dashboards: Panels are discussion groups where your customers can discuss and interact with each other. By monitoring these interactions, you can gain great insight into your audience;
• Develop customer relationships: have customer relationship software to gather information about them. With more data, the customer profile is mapped and further analysis can be done.

Overview: The company needs to better define and monitor competitors

The market is wide and dealing with competition is part of everyday life. But many companies face the problem of not properly monitoring their competitors, which can have serious consequences, such as loss of market share.

And even focusing on competitors, many make the mistake of focusing only on nearby opponents and ends up forgetting those who are distant or do not value disruptive technologies that emerge and may be a competitive advantage.

And as we talk about competitive advantage, that's what you need to get in front of your rivals, so you need to fix this marketing sin and monitor your competitors, as Philip Kotler explains now.

How to solve it?

• Have a competitor reviewer: create an area responsible for understanding the competition, as this will bring business intelligence and enable action plans to succeed in the marketplace;
• Hire competition professionals: It is important to note that the goal is not to discover competition secrets (this is illegal) but to understand from the experience of former employees - how they work, think and react to competition;
• Know the new technologies: monitor innovations and be prepared to implement them in your company and products, creating market differentiation and establishing a competitive advantage over the competition;
• Be competitive: have products that will "clash" with competing for products that compete for market dominance and that, if successful, will bring positive benefits to your business.

Overview: Company mismanages stakeholder relationship

This sin of marketing deals with one fundamental factor: relationship.

As Philip Kotler mentioned earlier, marketing is not just about marketing professionals, the good results will be the result of a joint effort from all areas. For this, your company must cultivate a good relationship with its stakeholders.

But who are these stakeholders? These are all people who are interested in your process and have a stake in it. In this case, you will deal with employees, suppliers, distributors, and resellers.

The problem arises at a time when employees are not satisfied, suppliers are not the best, or distributors and dealers are unhappy. All of this will affect the development of your product, process, and company.

How to solve it?

• Employees: respect employees by providing better working conditions and treating them as creative people;
• Suppliers: Seek out the best suppliers and offer rewards to encourage dedication. Create partnerships that will increase product quality, productivity and innovation;
• Distributors and Resellers: reach the best distributors to reach and satisfy customers in the best way.

Overview: The company is not good at identifying opportunities

Now let's talk about opportunities. We invite you to reflect with me: how often does your company identify new opportunities and have new ideas? Are these ideas working?

Follow this path always seeking to innovate. Otherwise, we need to understand that it is crucial to look at the opportunities that arise in the market and develop them to apply in their reality, always seeking to implement innovations and win customers in new ways.

So if your business hasn't identified great opportunities in recent years and most of the new ideas haven't worked, the tips below will be useful.

How to solve it?

• Create a flow of ideas: design a system that will create this flow of ideas from product design through sale to employees, suppliers, and partners. Thus, everyone will be willing to brainstorm, innovate and identify new opportunities;
• Use creativity systems: Allied to the flow of ideas, creativity systems are a way of observing changes in the environment and stimulating new ideas. A great example is a brainstorm, where everyone can give their ideas and, through discussion, refine them.

Overview: The company's marketing plans and planning process are deficient

In the process of strategizing, good planning is critical.

Many companies face problems where marketing plans have no logic, analyze wrong components, and have no contingency plans, so these companies are surprised that the marketing plan was poor and did not consider the possible changes that could occur along the way.

Allied to this, the lack of engagement with the plans contributes to the failures present in the execution.

How to solve it?

• Have a plan to analyze the situation: A good marketing plan includes an analysis of the current situation, SWOT, objectives, strategy, tactics, budgets, and control;
• Be prepared for possible changes: draw complementary plans and strategies in case the budget exceeds or does not meet the planned. The book suggests a 20% margin;
• Reward: Establish a method for rewarding, through awards or benefits, the marketing plans that achieve the best performance in the year.

Overview: products and services policies need adjustment

What products do you sell the most? Which one give you the biggest profits? Questions like these are very important to understand how your portfolio of product works.

Philip Kotler says that if your company has too many products you may be losing money, offers too many courtesies, or has difficulty selling your products in a more complex way with effective strategies, then your product policies need to be adjusted.

Poorly formulated or outdated policies may be affecting the entire operation of your business and therefore need to be fixed.

How to solve it?

• Identify weaknesses: You need to be able to identify which products are not producing results in order to adjust or even eliminate them from the portfolio;
• Decide what to charge: understand when to offer free products. Establish ways of offering these goods or services to those in need, where some are charged and some aren't;
• Evolve cross-selling and upselling: offer products that are complementary to yours that will add value to the customer (cross-sell) and induce the customer to buy the most expensive version of your product or exchange it for an up-to-date version.

Overview: Company branding and communication skills are ineffective

A well-built brand is easily recognized by the public and its identity is widespread in the marketplace.

In relation to your brand, analyze the following problems:

• Your company is not recognized by customers;
• There is no differentiation between your brand and competitors;
• Marketing always receives the same investment every year;
• No analysis is made of the return on marketing investments.

Did you identify yourself in any of these issues? So, it is a sign that your company is having difficulty in brand management. Look at the following solutions so you can make a company different from the well-defined brand identity.

How to solve it?

• Build your brand: A well-crafted brand develops customer expectations. The value of the brand will tell how much these expectations were met. So, build your brand to create expectations and meet them, increasing your value;
• Use the best tools: Analyze which marketing tools (advertising, public relations, sales promotion) are being most effective, generating better results and investing in them;
• Calculate impact: Always ask your marketing team to estimate the financial impact that campaigns will generate. It is very important to know the return obtained from the investment applied.

Overview: The company is not well organized for effective and efficient marketing

Is your team well aligned? Does the marketing leader offer effective solutions? Is marketing aligned with other areas?

These questions are critical to understanding if your business is well organized to perform effective and efficient marketing.

A misaligned team will affect everything from strategy development to campaign execution. That is, if the team is misaligned, this problem needs to be resolved.

How to solve it?

• Have a strong leader: A strong and competent leader will be able to guide efforts towards appropriate marketing strategies;
• Develop new marketing skills: positioning, integrated marketing communication, internet marketing, customer relationship management (CRM), among others;
• Improve Relationship: Integrate marketing with other areas of the business, improving the relationship between them and guiding them toward a common goal.

Overview: The company doesn't exploit the full potential of technology

The world we live in today is digital. So you need to be aware of new technologies.

If your business doesn't use the internet, has outdated systems, can't establish models for decision-making, and needs to develop better control and analysis methods, then there is a failure to tap the full potential of new technologies.

Today we have many options for improving the customer and work experience of company employees. So, to leave this sin behind, Philip Kotler suggests the following tips.

How to solve it?

• Explore the potential of the internet: leverage the tools the internet gives you, from an effective website to online training, recruitment and shopping;
• Develop dashboards: Dashboards are panels that, with data pooling, will provide analytics that will enable the development and control of marketing processes, tools, and performance.

What do other authors say about it?

Complementing Kotler's thinking, Seth Godin, the author of "This Is Marketing", talks about the importance of the Internet for marketing, explaining that it has changed the rules of the game. It is the most massive mean ever created because it connects billions of people.

Stressing the importance of being cost-conscious, Jay Conrad Levinson, in his "Guerrilla Marketing" work, presents a way to make more impact on marketing at lower costs. For this, he suggests digital media as essential in brand and product promotion, using tools such as email marketing, for example.

With marketing taking on this holistic format, we realize its importance in all areas of the business. So, just like Kotler, in the book "Sales Management. Simplified.", the author Mike Weinberg clarifies that in a good sales culture, salespeople remain responsible, meetings are positive for everyone, and reward programs are appropriate.

Okay, but how can I apply this to my life?

• Always be focused on the market, identifying new opportunities, and the customer, knowing their opinions, perceptions, and behaviors;
• Analyze your competitors, their strengths and weaknesses;
• Have a good relationship with your stakeholders;
• Create complete, efficient marketing plans and consider the possible scenarios you will encounter;
• Have a good product policy;
• Building a strong brand that will be identified by your customers and will send a message to consumers is essential;
• Explore the potential that new technologies offer you.

Did you like this summary of the book "Ten Deadly Marketing Sins"?

Are you ready to leverage your results avoiding those Marketing Sins that were shown here? Did you find this content useful? Leave your feedback in the comments!

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