A Marketing Plan is Always Needed

Ke$ha says "Stop! Is a snake really part of the plan?"

After my last blog post, “A Finely-Tuned Target More Successful with Brand Alliance Marketing”, a friend emailed to ask, “Who is the target market for Two-Way Listen?” I was incredulous thinking Chuck had the nerve to ask me this. I thought, “Isn’t it obvious?” Not to him it wasn’t and when I thought about it, I knew I hadn’t taken the time to define my audience or create a marketing plan.

Moroccanoil’s Passionate, Focused, and Disciplined Brand Management Success Story

photo via moroccanoil.com

I recently worked America's Beauty Show 2012 in Chicago and Moroccanoil was my favorite professional hair-care brand at the show. Harvard Business Review could write a case study called “Moroccanoil: Brand Management 101” or more descriptively, “How-to Successfully Build a Brand with Passion, Focus, and Discipline.”

The Salient Feature About Me, About Two-Way Listen, About Social Media

Image from smashingapps.com

It is difficult to objectively report on my single-most prominent attribute but if pressed on the matter, I would reluctantly offer up thriftiness. I know the word doesn’t brim with positivity; I probably should have reached for one that does. The latest research from geneticists, neuroscientists, psychologists, sociologists, economists, and other influential “ists” that hold sway over marketers recommend I tout my kinder, smarter, and more creative qualities. The book Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior sums up recent social-anthropological theory by stating I need to display “good genes, good health, and good social intelligence” to wow my fellow humans. I, however, believe my fellow humans would recognize a trumped up resume if I did that.

Two-Way Listen is my first blog. It is concerned with Product Management, Product Marketing, and the conversations companies and consumers have amongst themselves and with each other about products. I aim to present what one person listening to public discourse in the modern, multi-media connected market place can observe. The ease of connectedness makes this dialogue relatively new and raises the stakes of business marketing by making successes or missteps more public than ever before. For a marketer, talk can be both cheap and expensive. Listening is a thriftier proposition and luckily I have the gift of thrift.