Your first step in marketing: a step back.
The Big Idea: The foundation of marketing is Market Orientation. This is the idea that you don’t know anything without talking to the market.
Market Orientation demands that you begin your marketing efforts with research.
Why Does This Matter: There is a lot of marketing advice that tells people that they need new 4 Ps, storytelling, or something else.
“THAT’S THE KEY!”
It isn’t. This leads to commoditization, price based promotions, and ineffectiveness.
The foundation of good marketing is Market Orientation.
Inside Out Thinking.
Looking at the world through the eyes of your customer.
There are tons of names for the idea, but it is the same idea: You don’t know anything without doing your research.
Why?
You are too close to the product. You spend hours every day working on it.
You are not likely to have the same experiences or value the same things as the target customer. If you are a dude, you likely can’t imagine what it is like to be a woman. You can try, but actually doing it…another story.
Do This: Train yourself to embrace your ignorance. Good marketers do research.
You don’t have to start with $50,000 research projects. You can do a quick bit of Google research to see what has already been done.
Talk to a few customers.
Host a focus group.
Chat with some people at the pub.
Just get out of the office and into a conversation with the market.
Dig Deeper: I wrote a quick piece about Backward Market Research that might help.