Why Marketing, or the Parable of the Pizza Place

Mark From Marketing Says...

"So, you're from Marketing," she said. "You guys get to do all the fun stuff, like buy the company coffee mugs. But we already have customers, so what else do we need you for?"

Explaining marketing's value to the organization is an old story. I've found the best way to explain not only the Why's, but the How's, is the Parable of the Pizza Place.

"Imagine you don't work here," I begin. "Instead, you saved your money, and you opened a pizza place in the town where you live. You love pizza, and you know that lots of people love pizza, too. There should be plenty of customers.

"However, you might not have realized what a tough business it can be. Since the ingredients of each pizza costs you about $4, you'll need to sell a lot of pizzas to earn a profit and keep your doors open. Serving good pizzas won't be enough to stay in business. Not only will you need customers, you'll need the customers that you have to come back, and you'll always need new customers. How do you do that?"

"I'll advertise a little," she replied," and maybe I'll send out flyers with a coupon to get customers in the door. That should be enough, right?"

"If yours was the only pizzeria in town, some advertising and the occasional direct-mail flyer would be enough," I said. "But just like we do here, your pizzeria has competitors. And your challenge is to convince them to drive past your competitors' pizzerias to come to your pizzeria.

 "Here's the recipe for successful pizzeria marketing:

·         A good product. Your pizza is better than everyone else's.

·         A good story that says why it's better than everyone else's.

·         Knowing who to tell your good story to. Customers living within a five-mile radius will be fine in an urban/suburban area, but remember,  the farther they have to drive, the less convenient your pizzeria is.

·         A good way to tell your story. It can be in a local newspaper ad, on  your website, a social media site, or on flyers or direct-mail pieces. The more your customers see your message, the more likely they're remember you.

·         Sell what your customers want. Sometimes, pizza isn't enough. Do you need to sell other food?

·         Make it easy for your customers to buy your product. They can call-in an order. But can they order online?

·         Finally, know if your customers were satisfied enough to come back. If there was a problem, you can't fix it if you don't know what it was.

"That's all marketing," I concluded. "And it's what we do here. We tell you how good our products and services are considered in the marketplace by current and potential customers. We can identify the best way to tell customers about our products, and how to tell them effectively. We can tell you if our customers want more products and services from us. We can let you know if the customers are having trouble with either accessing or using our products, and if we're meeting their expectations in supporting them. And we can let you know if our customers are satisfied with not only what we do here, but how we do it. If they're happy, we can help keep them that way. If they're not, we can fix what's wrong before they decide to look elsewhere for what they need. That's marketing."

No one has ever asked me about coffee mugs after I tell this parable.

Are you hungry?