Themes - II

Data mining is also one aspect of a broader area that marketers need to be aware of: the intelligent use of a spectrum of data, specifically the intelligent use of relevant marketing metrics to drive the decision making process. All too often, marketing is driven through gut instinct and feel. These are actually important in marketing. Sometimes the value of a product or a campaign cannot be captured through traditional marketing research methods. The IPod, IPhone and the IPad are all examples of products which would have almost certainly been rejected by traditional marketing research methods. In such cases, the instincts of the managers can prove invaluable. However, a situation like this does not arrive often and certainly does not negate the intelligent use of relevant marketing metrics. It is not often realized that marketing involves a large amount of creativity. In many respects, marketers are like artists. Unlike the latter however, marketers also need to be rigorous in their approach. A marketing campaign can be highly creative; it also needs to deliver results.

One of the first things that students of marketing learn is the Product Life-cycle Curve (PLC) which tells about the stages of demand that a product or service goes through over time assuming that it succeeds in the marketplace. The PLC tells marketers that over time, growth in demand for their product or service will flatten out and then start declining. Armed with this insight, we can ask what can be done to rejuvenate a product whose growth has started to flatten or even decline? The key to finding the answer lies in understanding the difference between needs and wants and applying that understanding in data mining to reveal hidden patterns of consumption that even consumers may not be aware of. The difference between needs and wants is also one of the first things taught to students of marketing. Unfortunately, most people then seem to promptly forget about this. The result is that all too frequently, marketing efforts are wasted simply because of a failure to understand what is a need, what is a want and what is the difference between the two.

It can be said that marketing is all about the consumer. Wrong! Marketing is all about the mind of the consumer. There is a difference. It is subtle but it is important. Almost all marketers fall victim to the better mousetrap fallacy even while acknowledging the existence of said fallacy and denying that they are affected by it. Products and services have always had to meet and maintain minimum standards of quality and performance in order to have a chance (not a guarantee mind you) of success in the market. Usually, these standards need to be considerably higher than the minimum. What is ignored is that objective quality is not very relevant. What is of far greater importance is the perception of quality. In other words, the mind of the consumer is more important. When we start talking about mindsets, we start delving into the realm of psychology. Thus marketers need to be aware of the basics of the science of psychology in order to be successful.