Alice of Wonderland came upon a fork in the road and, not knowing which direction to take, asked the Cheshire Cat:

“Would you tell me, please, which way to take from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to go,” said the cat.
“I don’t much care where,” said Alice.
“Then any road will do,” said the cat.

The conundrum facing Alice is common to many South African businesspeople running industrial-type companies when it comes to marketing. Not knowing exactly what they want to achieve, they often apply interventions that are ineffective and costly. The reason for this is that the concept of marketing is vague in this ‘age of communication’ with so many alternatives and new methods and technologies that challenge the understanding of many current decision-makers who, having built their companies over many years, come from a differ- ent generation. The truth, however, is that there is not much to fear and even a rudimentary effort to understand modern marketing techniques would help businesses to choose the correct fork in the road.

One should not be put off by the plethora of definitions of marketing, many of which refer to the fulfilment of customer needs and the control of the flow of goods and services from producer to customer or client. While these often emanate from brilliant marketing minds, they can be difficult to understand and even counter- productive for hard-working businesspeople who want to understand the simple parts that make up the marketing whole.

Do not get me wrong. I know that there are many of you out there who design, implement and benefit from complex, high-level marketing strategies in line with the demands of your business. However, my 25 years of helping South African industrial companies market their goods and services have shown me that many businesses do not require such campaigns and often, in their erroneous belief that complexity is a given for any marketing solution, they fail to take advantage of simple strategies that would significantly impact their bottom line.

For instance, when marketing its products, a company needs to create a successful mix of the right product sold at the right price, in the right place, using the most suitable promotion. You will have picked up that this describes the ‘4 P’s of marketing’ as coined by American marketing professor Edmund McCarthy in the 1960s and which are still used, by and large, as the basic ingredients of what is known as the ‘marketing mix’. Of course, marketing is not a static science and with time there have been several variations on the 4 P’s theme like the addition of ‘three Ps’ – People, Process and Physical presence, which emphasise the need for excellent customer service.

The biggest change, however, in the marketing scene has been the Internet, the power and influence of which is growing exponentially, including its power as a marketing platform for companies of all sizes. At this stage, it may be argued that the Internet and social media are best suited for brands categorised as fast- moving consumer goods brands. But industrial- type firms ignore the Internet at their peril. Any marketing programme today must include Internet solutions that are pertinent to the business as it is a powerful way of enhancing the expe- rience of the organi- sation and, ultimately, marketing is the creation of a unique experience of the organisation for its publics, which include employees, customers or clients, suppliers and partners.

A deeper analysis of all this reveals the simple and beautiful truth about marketing, which is that in the final analysis it comprises two elements: listening and speaking.

A business has to develop acute listening skills so that it knows and understands its pub- lics, what they need, what they want and how they interact with the business’ products and services. To achieve this listening capacity, it is important to understand the distinction between needs and wants. Marketing guru Philip Kotler explains it best: “A human need is a state of deprivation of some basic satisfaction. People require food, clothing, shelter, safety, belonging and esteem. These needs are not created by society or by marketers. They exist in the very texture of the human condition. Wants are desires for specific satisfiers of needs. Marketers don’t create needs they influence wants and demand by making products appro- priate, attractive, affordable, and easily available to target consumers.”

Once the listening process is in motion the company can start to ‘speak’ about itself in a multitude of ways relevant to its publics’ experience of the company and its offerings.

Great companies, large or small, are clear that listening and speaking are an ongoing, iterative process and that doing so effectively can make marketing relatively simple to under- stand and implement.

Browde is the owner and MD of a marketing communications company in Johannesburg. he has been a marketer for more than 30 years focusing on industrial marketing for the last 25 years - alanb@bbcoms.co.za