- Marketing in this era is all about connections,
bridging the divide between the brand and the consumer.
Now, right now, you're facing a needs gap.
Consumers have an ideal of what they're looking for.
And if you don't measure up to that ideal,
well, then a gap exists.
And if you don't fill the gap, someone else will.
A troubling reality of marketing
is that if you're knocked down,
well, you can't lay there assuming
everyone else is knocked down too.
Theodore Levitt, an economist and Harvard professor,
once said, "The view that an industry
"is a customer-satisfying process,
"not a goods-producing process, is vital
"for all business people to understand."
In digital marketing, you'll constantly be auditing
your needs gap, and this is how you satisfy your customer.
And this needs gap can exist in a number of ways.
It may be your product,
the level of customer service you provide,
the way you respond to a crisis
or even the values of your brand.
Now, it's not enough to just look at marketing
as the messaging you're putting out.
It's the whole customer experience.
It's not enough to make customers aware,
you must satisfy this needs gap.
Now, in mid 2020, airlines faced
an enormous decline in sales.
The need of the consumer was the ability to cancel flights.
The gap was that some airlines weren't being flexible,
simply telling consumers that they're out of luck.
Now others had hours and hours of hold times
which enraged their consumer.
The airlines that emerged victorious
made sure there was no gap.
Service levels scaled quickly to manage the demand.
New cancellation options appeared online overnight,
and automatic refunds were triggered
without the need for any calls.
Consumers aren't afraid to switch to new brand preferences.
Loyalists to one airline who had a miserable experience,
become brand attractors, and they go on to find
a new brand to work with.
As situations change, so will the needs gap.
So you must chase after this gap relentlessly.
You'll need to find the cadence that works for you.
Sometimes it's monthly.
Other times it's quarterly,
but I want you to sit down and do the following.
One, identify your market's biggest needs gaps.
Two, define how you'll close them.
Three, put your plan into action
and then, four, align your messaging to the needs gap
that you've closed.
Now, remember, it's easy to get tunnel vision
on the tools you'll use in marketing,
but you've got to keep evolving your strategy
on many fronts.