Wednesday, October 8, 2008

marketing essentials

I recently spent a couple of hours doing an online Marketing Essentials course from Harvard Business School. Here is what I figured is the gist:

1. Understand the fundamental need behind demands.
2. Meet customer needs. Then exceed expectations.
3. Keep the conversation with the customer going.
4. Embrace change.
5. Everyone is a marketer.

All else derives from the above.

[Update: added item 5]

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

There are several products/services which are not classified as 'needs'. A demand has to be created. Like the colas, like google once was. So (1) would essentially not hold. (2) would be what you promise/advertise. Did you have a reference in your mind while coming up with this gist? Just interested to know how people absorb information.

Umang said...

@Mukta -
I don't agree with your Google example. At the time they launched, search was horribly broken. Altavista and Yahoo were more of directories for users to browse. They did have search engines but those didn't have a good way to rank websites, search results were often paid so prominence went to the highest bidder rather than the most relevant. Browse instead of search limited how much of the internet could be accessible and thus limited growth. Google stepped in and filled a real vacuum.

I'm afraid I don't how about the cola scene back when that wave started, so I can't comment.

However, I do agree that some demands can be created.

To answer your question, no, I didn't have a reference in mind while coming up with this gist. It is just what I gathered from the course.