Marketing is an essential component of any company’s long-term success, and it is constantly changing and evolving. Effective marketers understand how to use techniques to connect with and convert prospects, but the greatest marketers of all time laid the foundation for today’s strategies and successes.
Some marketers, such as Steve Jobs, have fundamentally altered the business landscape as we know it. Others, such as Frederick the Great, have influenced our current understanding of consumer behavior. If you’re looking for campaign ideas or want to learn more about marketing history, here are some pointers from the greatest marketers of all time.
Produce delectable goods and engage in astute marketing.
Apple’s advertising would not only contribute to the creation of one of history’s most successful companies, but it would also alter traditional marketing strategies as we know them. Its overall cool and minimalist marketing strategy embodies the sleek design of its products and helped turn a bankrupt Apple around, as evidenced by its Super Bowl ad, series of “Think Different” ads, “Get a Mac” campaign, and unmissable product unveilings.
Here are a few takeaways from Jobs’ marketing genius: Produce a high-quality product, create an emotional brand experience through events and campaigns, and continue to innovate for your customers.
Make use of your personal networks.
Network marketing entails tapping into the personal networks of a company’s independent agents. Because the incentive structure of network marketing is based on how quickly and broadly they can build and distribute to a network of customers, these agents evangelise the products or services.
Allow your product to sell itself.
Peter Drucker was well-known for his 60-year career in management consulting. Drucker was the father of management theory and a trusted advisor to some of the business’s most prominent CEOs, including Alfred Sloan and Andy Grove.
While he wrote many management books, one of his customer quotes is particularly poignant: “The goal of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him and sells itself.” If you truly understand your target market and have created a product with an excellent product-market fit, it will sell itself.
Consumers are more astute than you may believe.
“The consumer isn’t a moron; she’s your wife,” David Ogilvy famously said.
Oglilvy’s advertising empire was built on a thorough understanding of his target audiences. Although his remark is dated, the core principle remains true: your customers are smarter than you think. It will only benefit you to conduct extensive market research under the assumption that your customers are also conducting research.
The rest of Ogilvy’s advice is based on this central idea: speak the language of your target consumers to be more persuasive, keep your advertising informative but clear, and, most importantly, respect your audience’s time and intelligence.
Anticipate your target market’s requirements.
Henry Ford is remembered as an important figure in American history for revolutionizing the automobile industry with the Ford Model T in the early twentieth century. Ford and the Model T were remarkable in terms of the interchangeability of its parts, which enabled mass production – but, according to Harvard Business School professor Theodore Levitt, history has lauded Ford for the wrong reasons. “His real genius was marketing,” says Levitt.