Marketing?
Just Sales Promotion or More?
By Dennis Allen

A universal cry heard from business people up and down the country is that it is “hard making money”, and that time is too short to do anything else but today's work. In the effort to generate more sales, most activity is sales related as the key to success. A consequence is that the word “marketing” has become synonymous with sales promotion. This has been apparent for some time as the first words in “Marketing Effectively”, part of the compact Essential Manager series published in 2001 are, “Marketing is often confused with publicity and promotion, but these are just part of the discipline”.

Many companies in our industry, however, have stood back and become more market led and in doing so, are flourishing often as a result of decisions taken several years ago. A classic example of getting it wrong, then right, is to look outside our industry, at Tesco. Several years ago, when Sainsbury's were No. 1 with a high quality perception and Tesco a poor second (yes there was a time!) with their “pile it high” philosophy, Tesco decided to attack. In what was a classic case of promotion over marketing they spent many millions promising that if you went into a Tesco, you would see a new store that, they suggested, would compete with Sainsbury's. The trouble was, nothing had really changed and all that money was wasted.

Tesco did not give up though. They made a mistake and learnt from it with a vengeance by listening to their customers and changing themselves. It took years but we know the result. Listening to their market, tailoring their proposition and then promoting worked to produce one of the world's most successful retailers. The two examples following show that taking the long strategic view can and does work in jewellery and is then more effective with well structured promotional activity. The first, a retailer with several stores in the North of England, decided to commit to the Internet several years ago. He developed another identity to reach a new market but used his existing knowledge to develop the website. By trusting his instinct (which still has a place in strategic choice, if it is well founded) he established a very strong presence which still performs well when his retail outlets are down. And where does sales promotion fit? Deciding that advertising would not be cost effective he targets customers on the site and maintains interest by continually developing a site that is now several hundred pages long.



The above examples show that taking time to rethink your customer's needs and your own company's abilities is an essential tool in business today. Taking time out from the daily grind is not an option but part of each owner's responsibilities to his own company. Last word goes to a company that continually sets time aside for development and, as a result of an in-depth study of future direction undertaken over 15 years ago, has been highly successful in developing a niche that they believed in.
The second example is that of Mark Senior, MD of Domino giving his take on the Marketing versus promotion debate; h1> “The Domino offer was formulated over 15 years ago as a result of an in depth analysis of the market and a gap in the market that we believe we had identified. “Our subsequent focus on design of pre-finished blanks that enabled retailers to choose the quality of diamond appropriate to their customers, proved to be a winner for us. This was re-enforced by the release of The Handbook that, we like to think, has become an essential tool for many within the industry. “To us this is what strategic marketing is all about and subsequent promotions were not marketing, as such, but marketing tactics. A way of realising our marketing plan.” Dennis Allen, who thrives on “Inspiring Business Development”, can be contacted on dennis@dennisallen.f9.co.uk.