I bet you have gone at least once or twice to hospital for an emergency. Have you ever listened to yourself (or to others) talking to the recepcionists? My kid ... football ... leg ... hurts ... pain ... temperature .. cough, ... Bla, bla, bla. This is all noise to them. You'll probably be asked to take a seat and you'll be waiting hopefully for a couple of hours to be assisted. But try to include in your speech a word like ... HEART. And see the recepcionist reaction. Or say something like "DIFFICULTY FOR BREATHING". You won't know how it happened but in less than 20 seconds you'll be surrounded by several doctors and find yourself connected to any kind of medical device. This is because they have their protocols. There are some words that capture their attention and make them react in one way. They are the "medical urgency keywords".
These thoughts came to me from a personal experience in the past (which fortunately ended ok) and reminded me that in business happens kind of the same. If you're preparing your report or speech and your audience will be a marketing team or you'll be addressing it to the general manager and the marketing manager, make sure you include some of these words in your presentation. Otherwise they will be disconnecting from it in less than 10 minutes.
What keywords will let you connect with your audience in marketing?
(1) product strengths and weaknesses
(2) market opportunities and threats
No mystery in these two first keywords for marketing or market research people. We all know whatever you're analyzing needs to end up with a diagnosis, previous to define your objectives, strategies and action plan. And this diagnosis needs to be explained in terms of conclusions on the internal analysis (product) and the external analysis (market) you conducted. Yes, this is the typical SWOT diagnosis of marketing plans and books, with SWOT standing for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. You need to know your strengths in order to potentiate them in your communication. Your weaknesses to correct them. Your opportunities will give you ideas for new projects and you also need to be aware of your market threats in order to face them in the best conditions you can.
(3) purchase drivers
Translate what you found out when analyzing your data. Uncover what makes your customers buy your product. Why you. This will let everybody know how your customer is and behaves. Consumer behaviour information! This is pure gold for a marketing or general manager.
(4) compelling reason to buy (also purchase boosters)
Knowing about your customers behavior will let you understand what attributes you can focus on in your advertising and communication campaigns, this is, those things you do in order to increase your product sales.
(5) brand awareness
Are your customers aware of you? Do they know you exist in the market? Because, as a marketing manager or general manager, I will understand that if they don't, I will need to focus on a communication strategy. And if they do, if we do have a high brand knowledge and awareness but people do not buy me too much, then I'll understand that my priority should focus on a product strategy, to find out what's happening with my product.
(6) consumer barriers
Is there anything holding my customers back? Is there any negative opinion or perception that restrains them from buying my product? Of course, it will be very related to my product weaknesses. And I need to know it in order to change it or at least to minimize the impact if I can't avoid it.
(7) competitors
Inevitably, whatever you say about my competitors will prick my ears up. This is good information about how my market works: market information! Again, pure gold.
(8) customer engagement
Talk about what you found out about this. What actions make your customers connect with your company in social media. What does make them retweet or like something? Virality is a response to something they feel engaged with. And virality will bring you more product knowledge. Knowledge, virality and engagement will set the basis for increasing your sales through social media channels. Again, "increasing sales", two perfect words to keep their attention.
(9) market positioning
The market positioning is an association that your customers will build in their minds between your brand and some attributes. And if you want to succeed with a right positioning you need to define your relevant attribute and your differential attribute. The relevant attribute is the one that matters to the client. And the differential attribute is the one that will differentiate you from other competitors. The market positioning has a direct connection with your marketing strategy and therefore with the marketing team/manager.
(10) value proposition
The value proposition connects with your business strategy. It goes further ahead from positioning your brand on one attribute. It's the whole experience your customer will have when purchasing and using your product: his/her balance between a combination of costs (negative little experiences) and benefits (positive little experiences). You can't go anywhere without clearly defining first your value proposition and second your market positioning and the general manager and marketing manager know that. So whatever you tell them related to this, they will be listening carefully.
There is more and more data. And more and more tools to analyze this data. And maybe we're getting to a point where we don't need so much data and so many tools but more analysts that can make the most of this data with these tools. At the end of it, the marketing manager and the general manager do not care much about data and tools. They want the analysts to work with all that, so that they can finally tell them about the only two simple things they care about:
1) What's happening to my product/brand/company and
2) What do I have to do (this is, you, analyst that analyzed all data and took conclusions out, what do you recommend me to do?)
Marketing people tend to sort their thoughts within these two dimmensions. And also the general manager does. So take for granted that these 10 marketing keywords will allow you to connect with them, as you will be sorting thoughts in the same direction (within the same dimensions), as well as speaking the same language.
