Precise definition of the problem without management bias is imperative, in general management fell into the trap of defining their marketing problem as ‘what the competitors are doing that we are not’ and closely aligned their failures with the success of the competitors narrowly defining their marketing problem, hence disabling a wider view of the problem.
Decision-makers often do not spend enough time to write down and analyse all the factors that may have contributed to their problem and herein one of the main mistakes they made.
The communication between the teams and decision-makers need to be open, honest, and based on cooperation to define the right market problem and designing the best solutions. Decision-makers must invest an abundance of time analysing information about the market, industry, products, and competitor products as well as personal hunches to put the pieces of the right puzzle together!
Here are a few example
- As the sales of the “company A” (dealing in FMCG) decline significantly and the management noted that the “company B” has initiated heavy new advertising campaigns in most recent that increased their market share and profit. “company A” management attributed their weakness to “company B” strength and defined their problem as an advertising weight problem.
But when the fresh eyes of the marketing consultant analysed the situation, the cause of the marketing problem was revealed, For years, the “Company A” had been cutting product quality to maintain profit margins; lowering prices to compensate for the lower product quality, and holding volume and share of the market. When it stopped cutting prices, both volume and share of the market had to drop.
- “Organization A” was the first to enter in this Coaching segment and the “Organization B” entered the segment after 10 year. As in the last five years the revenue of “organization A” declined from 60 Cr to 10 Cr and enrolled students to 15000 only in 2016 – 2017. The management of “organization A” noted that the “organization B” has increased their budget heavily on Digital Marketing and intentionally indulge in (-) Ve Publicity of “organization A” over Social & Affiliate Media using fake ID’s.
But the real scenario was far from interpretation done by “organization A” management, after conducting the marketing research and analysing the data the findings was that the promises made by the centre staff was not fulfilled over the period of time that led the students to write the (-) ve reviews and for long time the “organization A” management ignored these reviews led to the decline of the enrolled students and revenue over the period of the time.
The “organization A” management also ignored the changing trend of digital in all facets of the business and same as an opportunity capitalised by “organization B” management let them grow their business and market share very fast.
Conclusion –
“To summarize, good marketing problem definition is a prerequisite for successful marketing strategies that really does solve marketing problems.”