Marketing
is a challenging profession. Marketing
is a process that aims to delight customers through creation, communication and
delivery of value. The delivered value
is represented by a bundle of offerings: which includes the product(s), image, idea(s),
services and other intangibles that create a delightful experience to the
customer. Delight is the emotional state
aimed by a marketer in the customer’s mind.
The delighted smiling customer is responsible for consumption of a
product or service – and the core of marketing is increasing the consumption. A delighted customer voluntarily spreads the message
of the product, this adds to positive word-of-mouth. Products and services that delight customers
are aimed at satisfying various needs, wants and desires: the process of
identifying and meeting these requirements makes marketing a challenging
process.
Marketing
is a passion, smiling becomes second nature to a marketer, speaking in an
ethical manner, generating positive emotions, praising the right points in a
product and appreciating interesting attributes of a target customer, and
speaking convincingly with logic - is a habit among successful marketers. Marketing personnel bring life to staid products;
advertising and communication activity adds glamour, attraction and creates a
pull towards the marketed product by giving hope of a promising and delightful ‘experience-in-store’.
Every
human craves to be happy and seeks progress.
Educational products and services for instance, offer hope of a help to
achieve higher happiness and progress (improvement). Entertainment products & services like
audio, video, TV channel programs… all are designed to provide the unexpected -
and get target audiences hooked onto a sequelae of delightful experiences. Marketing, verily, is a process of creating
delight among the targeted audiences, and marketing verily, creates the reason
for existence of a business. Consequently,
businesses create customers!
When
a Medical Representative meets a doctor in his clinic, the clinician looks with
hope of a pleasant encounter with a delightful personality. Through his smile, cheerful disposition, detailing
points, sampling strategies and in-clinic inputs, the MR, gives moments of knowledge
reminders, updates, positive strokes, joy and pleasantness to the doctor. The road travelled by a MR in his day-to-day
working is not a smooth one, on a daily basis; a MR overcomes routine obstacles
to his communication activity, and yet creates a sale, and delight to the
doctor or chemist. The same is true of
any other marketing person. Marketers
target their activities and messages to customers, they overcome stumbling
blocks and ensure the consumption of a product or service, and this ensures
delight in the customer.
Marketers
face following main obstacles of marketing communication in day-to-day working:
a)
Preoccupation
b)
Defensiveness
c)
Prejudice
d)
Memory failure
e) Language
problem
a) Preoccupation:
The open and uncluttered mind of a customer or doctor is the biggest window of
opportunity to a marketing communicator.
When a customer is met when he or she is relatively free from burden of
chores, and is able to provide attention to the marketing person, half the
battle for winning the customer is done.
Preoccupation is the chief reason for failure of consumption of
marketing messages, hence it is vital to meet prospects (target customers) at
their time of convenience rather than at the convenience of salesperson. It means the salesperson has to go the extra
mile. Eg., there are several doctors who
are ready to meet medical representatives (MRs) at early morning hours, but
only certain MRs are willing to take the extra trouble of meeting the doctor at
such times.
b) Defensiveness:
is the behavior of prospect or customer to avoid receiving marketing
messages. The prospect or customer
believes the messages are more marketing-person oriented rather customer
oriented. The potential customer thinks
the marketing person is there to sell the product or service and make a profit
rather than satisfy the customer. Hence,
it is vital to build bridges of trust: the sales person has to get accepted as
a reliable person, this will help reduce defensiveness and ensure better
acceptance of marketing messages.
c) Prejudice (or partiality):
is a routine experience for marketers.
For eg., certain doctors show partiality to MRs of multinational
companies. Or caste and creed may be a
criterion for making the purchasing/prescribing decision. Prejudice is a barrier that is surmounted by
sales personnel through sheer force of professionalism. There is no substitute to professional
behavior. The trained salesperson, who
represents the product with elan, persuasion and perseverance, will always be
in a better position to forge win-win relationships for successful sales
transactions.
d) Memory failure:
Preparation meets opportunity, is an
appropriate guiding principle for marketing and selling activities. A prepared MR or salesperson is in a position
of strength to handle objections and convince prospects on the benefits of
proposed product, service or idea.
Constant revision of product notes, talking points, and technical
profile of product or service, ensures there is no memory failure and interactions
with prospects or customers will be positive with gusto.
e) Language problem:
is often a stumbling block in communication process. It is vital to propose product or service
benefits with a vocabulary that matches wavelength of prospect. When medical products are marketed with appropriate
scientific or medical terminology, acceptance of marketing messages is
superior, chance of customer or prospect conversion is higher.
Above challenges to marketing
messaging are universal in nature. These
obstacles are seen in interpersonal and intragroup communication too. Ability to handle such objections in communication
process will help boost career fortunes. Thanks for reading this post, kindly scroll down to read older posts.
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