A Marketing
Consultant is a professional who offers businesses OUTSIDE OBJECTIVITY...
EXPERIENCE... TALENT... and INTUITION. Here is what these qualities mean to
you and your business.
Marketing Intuition When a combination
of talent and experience is applied in an insightful manner to predict and
guide a marketing effort, it is called "Marketing Intuition". Only
experienced marketing professionals possess this little-known ability with
the unique ability to analyze pending and coming marketing trends. Unfortunately
it is an ability that is unknown by many clients. In fact, it is difficult
to define and even more so to value. The best way I can illustrate marketing
intuition is with a series of examples.
Marketing Intuition is the 'crystal ball' in business planning and promotion.
Most of us have all heard of '"insider trading" in the stock market.
For those that haven't, it is getting a tip on something about to occur in
a corporation that will cause their stock to go up or down. If you knew that
Phizer was about to release a miracle drug called, Viagra and bought stocks,
you could make a killing as the stock values increased. By the same token,
if you had a tip that Enron was about to go down the tubes and cashed out,
you would avoid a loss. Insider trading is illegal. Ask Martha Stewart.
However, fortune telling is not illegal, but it is the bogus practice of predicting
the future by reading cards or palms, and a multi-million dollar business.
Speculation, on the other hand, is completely legitimate and practiced by
every entrepreneur that ever open a business, and it is what made America
great!
We all speculate, take risks and follow our dreams. Some of us just do it
better than others.
It is one thing to develop a product or service idea, yet another
to have the talent and experience to communicate to potential buyers.
Most new businesses are created with an idea born out of an unanswered need
in the market. Designing a product or creating a service to fill a void is
only half the battle. Being able to market with a message that will produce
sales is something else.
The outside objectivity of a seasoned marketing professional will help establish
the image and marketing strategy for a new business. Beyond the initial promotional
efforts to the primary market, a continuation of marketing promotion must
be directed to new, extended and allied markets. What are those markets? How
does a marketer address these markets? What changes must be made in the product
or service to target these new markets? This is "Marketing Intuition."
Graphic artists, printers, and in-house ad agencies may be able to produce
artwork for ads, catalogs and brochures, but they do not have Marketing Intuition!
Therefore, their ability to provide valuable insight to business is non-existent
Professional Marketing Consultants are continually exposed to a wide-range
of marketing influences. We study marketing trends, plot business successes
and failures and apply our past experience to advise and direct our clients.
While there is not guarantee that the predictions we make will be successful
all the time. This added dimension gives the client an added advantage to
stay at the cutting-edge of their market and enter new markets.