Every once in a while, something I believe to be true starts to expose the holes in its logic and I'm left wondering what I actually believe. Today it's the concept of marketing and whether yesterday's rules still apply. And I don't mean that metaphorically! Less than 24 hours ago it still all made sense. 

When I'm unclear, I write so here's a quick exercise if you'd like to follow along with my thinking.

If I asked you what you needed to do your job, what would that list look like?

If I asked you what you needed to run your household, what would it look like?

And if I asked you what you needed to get your computer to do exactly what you want, what would that look like?

One more just to make the point… if I asked you what you needed to make sure your home survives an apocalypse, what would that list look like?

Now let’s see if this exercise worked...

Did you notice that the less familiar you are with a topic, the less detailed you can be about what you need around it?

Marketing is no different. If you’re currently considering the launch of a new business, product, or service, how familiar are your potential buyers with your offering and do they really know their own needs? As the gap between technology and people's understanding of technology grows exponentially, it's no longer just enough to ask potential customers what they need. Nor is it practical. Imagine someone creating a solution for helping you survive the apocalypse by basing their solution on what you think you may need. 

Other factors need to be introduced when understanding your potential customer.

Is it enough to just have marketing knowledge?

For the sake of clarity, I’m going to throw in a term used in software development called “end-user requirements elicitation” which is the vital process of spending time with the end-users of a system to gather information about their needs.

Just so you know, end-user requirements elicitation is a specific task that forms part of the Business Analyst role within IT. It requires a skillset that allows the Business Analyst to help end-users identify their software needs. 

And therein lies the key to why marketing needs to change.

Consider this...

If you’re pivoting your business from offline to online, you’re now the Business Analyst and your avatars are your end-users all over the world. After all, they’re the ones seeing your social media posts, watching your webinars, browsing through your websites, and buying your products. 

Have you taken the necessary time to gather their requirements?

That was a trick question. 

When you’re putting together a marketing strategy and the structure around it, how do you gather requirements for end-users when you don’t know who or where they are?

And that brings me to the exercise at the start of the article. 

If you’re marketing something familiar to existing customers on a platform they're comfortable with, they’ll be able to tell you what they need because they’ve tried and tested it and experienced the limitations. Keep this conversation going for constant improvement to your products, systems, and processes.

The same concept applies when you’re marketing something familiar to new customers. They may have experienced the products, systems, and processes through other brands. 

But what happens when you’re marketing something unfamiliar to potential customers is that it’s often outside their frame of reference. This is where you need to pre-empt their behaviour and this is where and why marketing needs to change. It's time for a new dialogue about what marketing means today: Is it enough to focus your strategy on what they say they need when they don't know what they need?

While I don't have the answers, I'm excited about the new opportunities of seeing marketing in a different way. In the meantime, here are four tips to get the conversation going.

1. Identify WITH your avatar

Instead of starting off your campaign identifying your avatar, start by identifying WITH your avatar.  When you can identify with someone, you can pre-empt their needs as if they’re your own. Don't create an entire strategy around what you as the marketer feels the solution is based on the questions you've asked them in a questionnaire, quiz, or telephone call. Put yourself squarely in the shoes of your avatar and experience life as they see it to sincerely understand.

2. See the problem fixing itself

Start with the question “How can the problem solve itself?” This is a trick taken from TRIZ (the theory of creative problem solving) where true innovation takes place only when knowledge from different industries combine. When you ask questions around how a problem can fix itself, you’re more likely to bring in solutions from industries outside your own instead of the ones you’re familiar with. That's also the difference between improving something that already exists versus creating something entirely new. 

3. Learn from IT basics

Bring some IT basics into marketing. With the rise of the internet over the past two decades, this one is imperative as technology and marketing merge in an online world and the lines between buyer and end-users are blurred. 

Revisit your marketing strategy and see it as part of an IT system. While two completely different disciplines, IT has much to teach marketers in terms of systems, people, and processes, as these three components were at the core of system development from the start. 

4. Get familiar with TAM

When you see your marketing strategy as part of an IT system, you can apply the principles of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to guide your marketing strategy. According to TAM, end-users will either accept or reject a system based on two principles:

1. Perceived usefulness
2. Perceived ease of use

Is your marketing strategy creating the perception that using your online platforms to engage with you and buy your products are useful? Are your platforms easy to use?

If the answer to any of these two questions is “no” then your marketing strategy is likely to fail. Yes, you may acquire new customers because of perceived usefulness, but you’re unlikely to retain them if your system is difficult to use. That kind of marketing is not sustainable. On the flip side, they may find your system extremely easy to use, but not that useful and that's not sustainable either.

So what do you think. Does marketing need to change?

As a marketer with a Business Analyst background, I'm keen to get this dialogue going. Connect with me either in the comments below or in a message. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.