Let’s fool our customer

The caption itself is catchy and reveal that the article will talk about marketing strategies we use to convince the customer that the product is ultimate and you cannot afford to lose this one. Since my MBA days, I was overloaded with Kotler’s definition that marketing is all about satisfying customer. Although a brilliant question ends the I unit of Philip Kotler Marketing book and that question is, “Does marketing creates a need or satisfying need?” quite a debatable topic. Initially, it seems that it’s all about analyzing the need of customer manufacturing a brilliant product and announcing that hey I got your product and then making the product affordable for the customer. The story doesn’t stop here we go beyond selling and that is after-sales service as well. But have we thought ever that most of the time we bought the product we never intend to buy or will never use. My daughter has an uncanny habit of purchasing candies that comes with toys, her motive is not eating candies rather getting the toy is an achievement for her. Maybe that’s why her favourite brands are Kinder Joy & Crax. She even visits Mc Donalds for that kid's Meal Box hoping she will get the toy of her choice. This shows that the consumer is buying a brand just because his need was to get a free toy, please highlight a free toy, since she can pressurize me to buy a toy but the idea of getting a free toy is great for her. That is just the start; brands have started playing her mind just at the age of 5 years where she can easily differentiate between the Samsung Galaxy Note series and other low-cost mobiles.

It’s not the kids who are falling prey to this art but adults also fall to this. Marketing believes in STP that is segmentation, targeting & positioning. First of all, try to find out a segment that is useful to them and then they target with their strategies. The catch here is to understand the mentality of your consumer since they will pressurizes the customer to buy. Let me simplify this by an example. How many of you want have opted for colleges for higher studies and that too a management college? I am specially mentioning the management colleges since they can relate it well. While going through certain advertisement of colleges you would have witnessed boasting them about Lush green campus, situated in heart of the city, best infrastructure, fully AC campus, full placement but have they ever told you that what is the percentage of students who have opted for entrepreneurship? How many of them are motivated for startups? My question is simple since they have taught them to do business then where the hell job has come up. Ok if you have studied MBBS then will you settle by becoming a compounder, I guess no! So actually they should tell you about their teaching philosophy, the way they impact knowledge, the practicality of course, how modern is your lab and libraries. If anything you find outdated you have plenty of other options since every organization is not degrading their standards.

The price doesn’t speak about the quality of goods so never ever judge any product based on their price. Generic drugs come up at half of the cost but are equally effective. Being a customer you need to self-analyze your need and then decide what options satisfies your need. You have to be clear and specific about your need. Going through management college and enjoying five-star treatment is not your need, getting education and training is your need, starting a business is your need, knowing the process of selecting the business, ideas, finance etc. was real essence. Let companies try to fool you but you go for self-analysis need and evaluate various options and then opt for the best one.

All the best