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| HOUSE OF CARDS |
So-how are you and how's life been treating lately..Me? Its been a lousy few days.
As you must be knowing by now about my addiction with the net,I was on a high the other day when I saw a blog post. My eyes stuck to the title which said " Now shove this paper on sales face-Marketing". not those exact words, but I'm sure you get the drift.
I stared at it open-mouthed in surprise and tried to know more about the author. But no information was available except for his name. Then it struck me that holy shit! this guy does not know the difference between sales and marketing as yet. Just think of a hypothetical situation where you are walking along with a werewolf expert in a deserted countryside. Suddenly a werewolf sees you both and gives chase, and your friend asks you " Who's that guy?" ..Eeeps!!! And you were counting on this dude to protect you!!!
So, this post is gonna be about Marketing and Sales-the much misunderstood dynamic duo-so that the werewolf doesn't get you............
The entire act of fulfilling a need of a section or few people by allowing them to purchase whatever it is they want is called marketing. Marketing is not one thing-it is a process where different activities come together and start from checking the need an entity has, devise way to fulfill that need, and sell it to the person who is wiling to pay the highest amount of revenue. We have our needs implanted biologically and later psychologically inside us since we are born. In the womb, all its needs were catered to automatically but after birth, the baby say feels odd and therefore bawls. It wants milk which he got every time he wanted it. So it now bawls and presto it gets it. This is the process of breast-milk marketing. In subsequent posts, we are going to visit a man named Maslow, who will a important cog in this learning process.
We will learn about the need, how to fulfill it, how to position it, the importance of advertising, where to target it,how to give it, how to fix the costing etc. Look at the illustration above guys, the cards here are the different functions, the card house is marketing. Some of the cards are more important like the one at the bottom-those are card (sale); card (need); card (costing). The cards above are slightly less important maybe. It all depends upon the application.
Rahul Bajaj and Bajaj Auto Ltd.
Years back when the Indian economy was still locked up, the president (owner) of Bajaj Auto Ltd was asked about his marketing dept. Bajaj replied arrogantly " Marketing? We don't require a marketing department. Ours are the best"..The card called competition was then just a idle lay back card. But once the economy opened up, competition became a big threat. Today Bajaj spends millions of dollars in advertising. There is however no doubt that the fact that more then 80% of the scooters brought than were Bajaj make. Bajaj could change when circumstances demanded it. As for his scooters, the businessman identified the national character with the scooter. His ads seem to say" Be indian-drive a rugged scooter-don't go for these namby-pamby foreign technology scooters. Those are not fit for our roads. Or, why would everyone prefer Bajaj today?" Bajaj Auto ads do not feature celebrities..just actors.
People are impressed because a lot 50% maybe, scooters are still Bajaj. The fact that this is due to the early years of no competition, is hardly known. (Bajaj's scooter sales are actually falling..but still they command respect. That's because every repair shop you go has bajaj parts in stock. People don't understand that unless they keep these parts, they won't have business. The Bajaj Super is a reliable two wheeler but looks, sleekness..etc,
forget them.
Well, I think that's enough for today and next post we will take up a different card. And as a parting shot " the sum of the parts is always different from the whole" . Sales is one part whereas marketing is the entire bloody card-house.
Adieu than till the next post
With lots of love from
Someone
From Bags end
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