This is an H1

This is an H2

This is an H3

This is an H4

This is an H5

This is an H6

Next, we have to accept that the markets are very competitive. Some competitors have done better than us with the right approach in different market areas, as well as identifying target customers. In this case, we have two paths ahead of our brand:

In order to be present in the field of marketing, we should not ask what we do best?! We have to ask what do we do better than our competitors?! The answers to these two questions are different, and this difference will save on marketing costs. The main issue is to identify the advantages of the brand over other competitors.

Next we need to find specific market segments. Market segments that need our brand product or service and we are the best in it. It does not matter if you have 100% of the audience in a market area. This is a wrong approach. The brand should focus on the main customers. Customers who feel good about using our brand products or services. You should not worry about the rest!

To formulate the right marketing strategy, we must always keep in mind three important principles:

Market research or listen to customers!

Marketing means talking and communicating with customers. To create a good relationship, we need to properly identify customers and their locations. Market research can help us here. This research can be done both extensively and simply or unexpectedly! I agree with the simpler methods. Market research can be very simple, just by listening to customers.

For many companies, we prefer to use the term customer listening over market research. Because when the top managers of small and medium-sized companies and businesses hear the name of market research, they think about its high costs and become careless about it. This emotional behavior causes everything to fall apart from the wrong foundation. Because without knowing the market and the customers and the competitors, the media are chosen, and it is like pouring money into the water.

So from now on, let's look at market research a little easier and call it customer listening. This is much easier for small businesses and much less expensive for large brands. So, both of them can use this simple method. What matters is the efficiency of the method, which we are sure will work for any brand.

One of the main obstacles we encountered in this section is the arrogance of business owners. Because when we claim that we know everything about our brand business and cannot learn anything from customers, we will never listen to them. If you believe in your mind that you know what your customers want and how much they are willing to pay for your product or service, your ear will never hear the customer!

Let's look at our customers from a different perspective. If our customers are our partners, then how much do we want to know about their behavior? Absolutely too much. So we will be curious to understand their different views. And now when we consider them our partners, it is not foolish to ask them about our lifestyle (brand, product and services). congratulation. You entered into a relationship with your customers by changing the way of thinking :))

You need to be creative to listen to your customers. You can use cost-effective and simple methods. For example, if you have a restaurant, put an evaluation form and a pen on every table except sauces and plates. This is a good start for marketing. How to collect customer feedback easily and at the lowest cost in any business is a question that you can find the right answers with a little thought. These answers can be a turning point for starting an attractive and result-oriented marketing.

The important question is what to ask customers?

Of course, the first thing is feedback. Feedback from the product or service. We can invite them to provide feedback on product development and improvement. We can ask about the most important factors in their selection.

Doing all this is very simple. We can use online questionnaires. We can sit at a table with some of the most prominent customers and listen to them. We can create a forum or customer portal to chat. You can use the survey forms as in the example above. It comes down to how creative you are and how you listen to the customer.

In short, we can improve our brand in a completely creative and low cost way by listening to selected market segments and considering our most valuable customers as partners.

Customer benefits

It does not matter from the customer's point of view what features your product or brand has! It is value creation that matters. Customers buy the value that your brand creates, not your product or service! Now what do we have to do to reach this value? We need to see what value our product or service creates for the customer.

Investing in the benefits that customers have in mind is safer than investing in the features that we as a brand owner know of our product and business.

If you are looking to grow your brand or business, we should and should emphasize customer benefits based on a deep understanding of what our customers are actually buying from us. We can look at our brand in two ways:

More marketing seeks to explore different topics from a customer perspective. Marketing is not a separate part of a business, but marketing is a job that is defined from the perspective of customers! How do your customers see your brand? The answer designing Marketing Plan ( Marketing Plan ) is very smooth.

The problem is that we are usually inside the organization, and we see all our organizational features, characteristics and behaviors from within. While customers look at them from outside the organization and this view is completely different. To achieve what benefits we have from the customers' point of view, we have to look at our business from the outside.

The customer is only interested in what we can do for him! We only talk about product features, but the customer is looking for the benefits of our product. For example, if you are a web designer and your customer asks why I should use your service, you can answer in two different ways:

Important points were mentioned in both of the above answers. But in the first answer only the features of the product were defined and in the second answer the advantages of the product were explained to the customer. The benefits that the customer is looking for. If we give the first answer to the customer, he will probably say in his mind: “Well, what! Some company has given a lower price than you !! ” But if you answer the second, you are halfway here.

To succeed in this way, you must look at your business from the outside. Yes, you should wear the customer's shoes and evaluate from his point of view how effective this service or product is for me. So before you make any offer, listen to what they want and what benefits they are looking for. In marketing, identifying the benefits that customers are looking for is especially important.

When you look at a brand from a customer perspective, you can better understand their views, needs, preferences, and everything else that matters to them. This way we can better understand the reasons why the customer buys from us. This may not be exactly what we think we are selling because customers sometimes buy intangible benefits: for example, a sense of community superiority by using that product or a "good feeling agent" for owning it.

Only when we look at our business from the customer's point of view do we realize what values ​​are important to customers in purchasing the product.

In the following, we will introduce a very simple but extremely effective method to help you in marketing.

3M Method In Marketing

We introduce you to a simple method of marketing and that is the 3M method. It doesn't matter how big or small your brand is. This very attractive, simple, eloquent and fluent method can help you where to start and where to go. It is also a very powerful but simple technique for communicating with customers. Let's see what this 3M is!

Market means choosing the right market. You can have a smart presence by identifying the market, customers and competitors. To do this, consider identifying your target market for each product. So if you have several products with different markets, it means you have to enter several markets. This was the M1.

Message means selecting advertising messages. These messages, as we said, are compiled with the knowledge gained from customers. To be present in any market, you need to create the right advertising message. Sometimes you have to create different messages to be in a market. Just keep in mind when creating a promotional message that the message should emphasize the customer's benefits, not the product's features. This is also M2.

Media also means choosing media that can introduce the brand to its audience. Media or media is the vehicle that we use to convey a message to any media. The media that is selected to convey a specific message to a range of specific audiences. Here the meaning is specific to that particular business.

So if this method is so simple, why do so many businesses get stuck in their advertising?

Very important point: to do this method, we must observe the priorities of review and implementation from option 1 to 3, respectively.

We see that it is a simple method, but still most businesses enter with no knowledge, which leads to a waste of budget and time. The problem is that 3M is mistaken. Instead of looking at the market and customers first, a medium is first selected to be present. We can say that they are enchanted by a certain medium and enter the brand advertisement in that medium before examining the customers and the market. They do not pay any attention to what content they are producing. They think that they can succeed only by being present in that medium. But it is not.

I have seen many people who say that we worked on Instagram but did not get results! Or we hit the website and it didn't work. Why did they choose Instagram? Because they heard that customers can be attracted this way! Why did they go and design the site? Because they have heard that many businesses now have websites, so should we. Completely emotional decisions without research.

Of course, we need to know that each of these media is good in itself. But be careful to first prepare the target market and customers and the advertising message and then see which media are suitable to convey our message to the audience. So be careful to use 3M in order. With this method, you will have a completely strategic and appropriate marketing.

Well, now that you are familiar with 3M marketing and method, I suggest you consider the following checklist to develop a proper marketing strategy.

Checklist To Ensure An Effective Marketing Strategy

An example of 3M marketing

Mr. Village Manager has a silver shop. He asked us for marketing advice. He did not want to jump into the water. He had previously studied and entered into negotiations with a number of companies and individuals. When he attended the counseling session, he asked us to check to see if it was more appropriate for him to design the site and to be present on social networks, or to prepare brochures and catalogs.

We always ask this question in training sessions when someone with these characteristics asks such a question. What should we answer? Some students push on the website, some on brochure and catalog advertising, and some on both. But everyone has forgotten that the choice of media is after the Market and Message steps. The problem is that the question of the village manager is problematic from the beginning!

The question of the village manager was based on the choice of media, while the market had not yet been identified and the advertising message had not been selected. But our job as a consultant is to see the problem and come up with solutions. So before answering his question, we first asked our questions. I asked questions about the silver industry and its sales, the types of products they have, the type of customers they have, current sales, pricing policies and other aspects.

Mr. Village Manager's business was simple. He had two types of products. Expensive silver jewelry and elegant and modern jewelry. They produced both products beautifully and had many customers in each category. Analyzing the audience of each of its products, we easily found that expensive silver jewelry is often bought by older women (between 45 and 60 years old) and in very good financial condition. Delicate silver jewelry is also often chosen by young women (between 20 and 30) years old.

According to the village manager, he had a business. An account numbers. A shop and a type of product. But in terms of marketing, he had two businesses. This is the difference between a brand owner and a customer. We worked with the village manager on this through the 3M marketing method:

For the first category

To decide on this, we need to understand the customer. We have to look at the world from their point of view. What are their habits? How do they behave? What are their preferences? Who are their friends? Who trusts them? Who do they believe in? Let's go and ask them… As a result, we came to the conclusion that perhaps the most appropriate means of conveying this message is a feature or ad in one of the glossy lifestyle magazines that these women read. These magazines are tailored to their specific image and preferences. And so, after considering this product, identifying its markets and creating a message, we came to the conclusion that the best way to convey a message is to advertise or feature an editorial in one of these magazines.

For the second category

What is the most appropriate way to convey this message to young women? We have to find their lifestyle and the media that uses them and trusts them, examines their behavior and what media they are most in touch with. By asking this question, we conclude that social media such as Instagram and text messaging are the most suitable media to use.

This was a simple and practical example of a brand's effectiveness in using the 3M method. You can see how easy it is to get a marketing plan for businesses this way. You just have to be more discriminating with the help you render toward other people.

If you have any questions about this, be sure to ask in the comments section. Also, if you have the experience of using blind advertising without considering the target market and advertising message, announce it in the comments section. We look forward to hearing from you about marketing and advertising.

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