An article by Mark Goulston titled “What’s on Your Customer’s Mind“, found in FAST COMPANY‘s resource center under “leadership”, forced me to think today about marketing (Augh! MY BRAIN! MY BRAIN!)

Mark says “It’s easier to persuade people to buy what they want than what you want them to want”, and suggests seven questions all buyers ask themselves subconsciously before they buy. OK, this makes sense to me, but isn’t this rather basic? Read the article for details, of course, but here are the seven questions:

1. What can YOU do for me?
2. Why is that IMPORTANT to me?
3. Is that MORE than I’m getting now?
4. Is that BETTER than I’m getting now?
5. Is that SOONER than I’m getting now?
6. Does it COST LESS than I’m paying now?
7. Is that LESS RISKY than what I’m doing now?

Mark finishes with this statement: “Your customers are not fools. If you don’t take your customer’s expectations into consideration, you’re only fooling yourself.”

Because we deal with the Real World here in the Zone, I had to wonder: How hard is it out there to just get the basics right? Sure, practicing innovative, cutting edge behavior is crucial in gaining and keeping market share, but how often do we concentrate on them such that we end up forgetting the basics?

Since I’m no marketing expert (I’m an engineer, thank you very much!), I sent the article to someone who is, along with the following questions (thanks again, Dennis):

1. Isn’t this kind of obvious?
2. Would you consider this to be universal to marketing success?
3. How difficult is it to apply in the real world?

For your edification, here are his responses:

1. Yes
2. Ditto
3. You would be truly amazed at how many companies develop products or fall in love with their ideas without ever asking any of these seven questions. Whenever I hear phrases like “We know they will like it…” or “This is just what they need…” the hairs on the back of my marketing neck begin to quiver and dance about – A true sign that you are entering a “no win” marketing mine field. Many times, even if they ask these questions, they don’t like the answers they get back and begin a process to pervert the answers into some kind of mumbo-jumbo jargon that seems to support their view. In such environments a whack to the back of the head and a cold dousing of reality usually only gets you escorted to the door and labeled “not a team player” (the no win).

To which I might add, heaven help you if you are treating your customers like fools, even unintentionally! Customer perception in the marketplace can be far more powerful than reality, and in the end, the market is what eventually determines who survives.

To quote Tom Peters: “Perception is all there is. Period.”