Meta Marketing Intro 12 Ps and Selectivity

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RHOT 250 Fall 2012

SROM 151 Fall 2012

By Steve Bareham

A Meta-Manual

for Resort Managers

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Text Introduction 12P’s and Selectivity 1

Chapter 1: Potent marketing concepts 11

Chapter 2: Socio-economic trends 31

Chapter 3: Advertising 53

Chapter 4: High Impact Menu Copy Writing 83

Chapter 5: Creating total quality service 93

Chapter 6: A sales system to boost sales 117

Chapter 7: Marketing & technology 139

Chapter 8: Marketing Research 161

Chapter 9: Media, media relations & public relations 191

Chapter 10: Customer relations management [CRM] 203

Chapter 11: Strategic Marketing Plans 219

Chapter 12: Marketing audits & marketing budgets 239

Table of Contents

You must have

mindshare before

you can have market

share.

—Christopher M. Knight

META TIP

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M ETA: “…later or more highly specialized form of...; change:

transformation, more comprehensive, transcending..."

—Webster's

MARKETING: “aggregate functions designed and employed by service-

and product-oriented organizations to retain and enhance the patronage

of existing clients and to gain the patronage of potential future clients.”

Meta-marketing is a concept designed to help managers to transcend and

to make more comprehensive the traditional approaches and perspectives

applied to marketing. Is this necessary?

Yes. A case can be made that for more than a century, marketing has been

too narrowly defined, even by many marketing specialists. Most

marketing definitions cover the obvious: advertising, promotion, sales,

packaging—the overt glitz that we’re all bombarded with daily. Meta-

marketers also include customer service, operational policies, physical

plant, staff training, telephone answering machines—even washroom

cleanliness—because all of these directly influence guest perceptions

either positively or negatively.

If you haven’t already, you are urged throughout this text to expand your

marketing attitude, to adopt a new philosophy that will systematically

involve every staff member from general manager to janitor. Everyone at

your company should have one over-riding purpose—to meet and exceed

every conceivable guest expectation. To do this, each person must be

educated about meta-marketing and trained in its delivery.

This text is based on another premise as well, that the best way to succeed

in business is to focus unerringly on marketing. Marketing creates and

retains customers—and customers are the raisons d'être of any business.

Because marketing is such a dynamic undertaking, the daily priorities of a

manager should be to not only market today's products and services in a

superior manner, but to also constantly seek product and service

innovations to ensure that what is offered in the future is distinct and

better than what is being offered by the competition.

Everything Is Marketing

Meta-marketing managers are committed to the philosophy that

everything falls within the rubric of marketing. If you adopt this

philosophy, you will be the exception. If you can put it into practice at

your club, hotel, or resort, you, and it, will be exceptional.

INTRODUCTION: The 12 P’s & Selectivity

Everything you and your staff do has marketing

implications.

Marketing permeates your organization at every level,

and not only from the perspective of staff

interactions.

Your physical plant also has marketing impact; remember the negative impression you last had after experiencing a dirty

washroom or signage that seemed designed to get

you lost.

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The 12 P’s of marketing

Market ing: The Meta -Manual for Resort Managers

M arketing, as a discipline, has existed for only about a century. It

grew as a result of mechanization and mass production that ena-

bled companies to produce goods faster than society could consume

them. Threatened with swollen inventories, and facing intense competi-

tion for buyers, business people began systematizing ways to appeal to

customers.

With a focus on “systems,” arose categories and these categories be-

came the ingredients of marketing, thus the term “marketing mix.” was

coined in the 1940s. At first the ingredients were few, initially only

four: product, price, place, and promotion.

By the early 1990s, a fifth P - people - was recognized as a key factor

that made the difference to success or failure, profit or loss.

Through the years, more P’s have been added to ensure a comprehen-

sive approach to marketing (now at 12 and counting). For marketers,

though, the whole object of marketing should always boil down to one

major consideration: Is this something that customers want, and have

I verified that want with valid research methodologies? This is the all-

important Proof aspect of marketing.

Keeping the P’s at the tops of our marketing minds is always wise, and

for that reason, they appear at the front of this book—it pays to look at

them often and to do a quick audit to ensure that none are missing and

that all are functioning properly:

PRODUCT - What is the product or service, you offer, be you a resort

course, resort, hotel, restaurant, florist, engineer, builder, naturo-

path, dentist, delivery person, writer, or whatever. The danger lies

in not accurately defining what it is that you are equipped to sell

better than your competition. Many business people err by building

too many product or service lines and also ones that dilute focus.

PROOF - What research have you done into your customers and your

competitors to prove that your existing or proposed product/service

is, in fact, needed/wanted, and that your marketing idea will pro-

duce projected results? As well, can you verify that you and your

staff possess the needed knowledge, skills, experience, expertise, &

distinctive competencies to ensure success? There is no such thing

as too much research, in fact, the reality is that far too little is done

in favour of intuition and gut instinct (neither of which have any

quantifiable bases).

PEOPLE - Who wants/needs your product/service, i.e. who are your

target markets: baby boomers, retirees, teenagers, sports people,

In the factory we

make cosmetics;

in the drugstore

we sell hope.

—Charles Revson

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campers, mechanics, teachers, nurses, high school or mature age

students etc.? Have you talked to these people—a lot? Who haven't

you thought of? Have you considered the different generational per-

spectives and other slices of society that can be appealed to in the

interest of building your revenue base? “People” enters the world of

heterogeneity, targeting, segmentation, and ultrafine targeting to

ensure that finite marketing dollars are not wasted, more on all the-

se later.

PERCEPTION- How does the audience currently judge your product

and your range of services: expensive, economical, functional, ex-

cellent service, top quality, innovative, trendy etc.? Ongoing re-

search is needed to ensure that an urge to maintain status quo isn’t

eclipsed by changing resort and guest demands.

POSITION - Where do you want your product to be placed in the

minds of guests: the best, equal to, better than, one of a kind etc.?

How did you determine that position? Did you factor in biases,

prejudices, gender issues? Who do you consider to be your compe-

tition that you are measuring yourself against? Do you know them?

Do people you want to attract know them, and how do you stack up

comparatively? Is this positioning that customers want? Have you

planned and controlled your position, or has it evolved by accident?

PRICE - What should a fair and competitive cost range be for your

product, and is it set at a point that guests will respond favourably?

Is your strategy high price, low volume, or low price, high volume,

or somewhere in the middle with other competitors; each strategy

has merits and negatives and all should be considered.

PROBLEMS & PITFALLS - What can hinder your product ac-

ceptance? (Competition, misrepresentation, economic decline, gov-

ernment policy, overhype, under delivery etc.) And, once these po-

tential problems have been identified, how will you respond to and

overcome them should they occur? Use a process known as

“planning to fail” so you can predict and prevent before crises arise.

PROMOTION - Promotion keeps your products and services in the

minds of customers and guests, and in so doing, helps to stimulate

demand. Promotion involves pretty much everything done to boost

sales, i.e. ongoing advertising, sales, media relations and public re-

lations—all are integral parts of the promotions mix. In marketing

terminology, promotions divided into two categories: above-the-

line and below-the-line. Overt advertising through traditional media

outlets such as newspapers, radio, television, magazines, and the

Internet, are all considered above-the-line promotions, while other


Authentic marketing is not the art of selling what you make but knowing what to

make. It is the art of identifying and

understanding customer needs and creating solutions that deliver satisfaction to the

customers, profits to the producers and benefits for

the stakeholders.

—Philip Kotler

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The 12 P’s of marketing


marketing approaches fall into the below-the-line category. On the

surface, above-the-line marketing (advertising) is the most straight

forward challenge in many respects, while below-the-line has many

facets:

sales promotions (gifts, onsite sales reps)

direct marketing (mail, Internet, etc.)

competitions and contests

sponsorships

most public relations involvements

loyalty programs

point-of-sale merchandising and displays

exhibitions and trade shows

discounts and coupons

PERSUASION - When you pursue marketing initiatives to stimulate

buyer response, do you strategically apply your persuasion arsenal?

There are many specific persuasion techniques and strategies that

you can use individually, combine several, or use all of them:

Ethos: the integrity and credibility of you, your staff, and

company

Pathos: the positive emotional connections you make; ben-

efits of a product or service appeal to emotions

Logos: how your marketing overtures respond to people’s

logical side; features of a product or service answer the

need for factual information

Reciprocity: people respond in kind, good nets good

Association: people can be influenced by the people they

associate your company with, e.g. endorsements from fa-

mous athletes or personalities

Beliefs and values: research can reveal these and they are

very powerful motivators once known. Although they are

commonly used together as though they are the same, be-

liefs differ from values very significantly and marketers

should be aware of the difference. For instance, we can be-

lieve in democracy, but it is the values we ascribe to it that

really impacts our lives. The key values to democracy, for

example, could be cited as freedom, one person/one vote,

majority rule, etc. Likewise religion, people “believe” in a

god, but it is tenets of behaviour that articulate the values,

e.g. The 10 commandments; without values, beliefs have

little substance.

Contrast: focusing on differences; you can influence the

perception others hold by illustrating how your company is

different and better (differentiation); contrast also applies to

price point options: best, medium, and budget quality.

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Scarcity: “buy this now, it’s the last one!”

Education: over time, the persistent presentation of infor-

mation can be very persuasive (Volvo as the safest car)

Expectation and Anticipation: if you can build positive

anticipation, the sale is almost made

Social proof: “Everyone else is doing it….”

Authority: most people are followers.

Ego: People love to have this stroked.

Consistency: Why change when you’ve been satisfied for

years?

Commitment: loyalty programs

Personal gain: this is a no-brainer.

PRO-ACTIVE FOLLOW-UP - What will you do to check on custom-

er satisfaction after the sale? Follow up is a critical part of the

emerging science of customer relations management (CRM).

PLACE - Is your hotel and all of your facilities what guests want?

What do they like in particular; what don’t they like?

PROCESSES - Little annoys customers more than corporate processes

that stymie effectiveness and efficiency. Processes can be policies, pro-

cedures, or technology that get in the way of good service. You should

check all of the following to ensure that they are customer friendly:

Phone answering and message system

Purchase technology (in-store and online)

Registration and sign-ins

Email contact

Membership and subscription procedures

Form completing technology

Online software people need to complete

Complaint procedures

Twelve P's to define, analyze, research, plan for, and to implement. Do

them all well, and the likelihood of success is greatly improved..


Authentic marketing is not

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The psychology of selectivity

Research reveals that most of us, via newspapers, radio, TV, signage,

the Internet, direct mail, telemarketing, etc. are bombarded by hundreds

of advertising messages each day. Our brains determine which ads we

attend to and which ones we don’t, and it’s a good thing they do or we

could literally suffer cognitive overload.

However, our ability to sift, sort, prioritize, and ignore marketing mes-

sages also presents a great challenge to marketers whose job it is to

break through the clutter so we buy their products and services.

Significantly, consumers’ ability to recall brands and products follow-

ing exposure to marketing communication has been shown to have a

direct and correlative impact on consumer decision behavior, i.e.

whether or not they buy. There is also a wealth of research supporting

the contention that knowledgeable consumers remain loyal to specific

brands once memory impressions are engrained.

“…choice experience results in selective retention of brand information

favoring chosen brands. This selective retention continues to favor pre-

viously chosen brands even if a previously inferior brand is improved

through addition of a new attribute (Biehal and Chakravarti 1982-

1983).”

Thus, marketers must also become amateur psychologists since we have

to gain some understanding of how people process information. In

short, people try to make the complex more simple by employing cog-

nitive schemas. Our brains, when encountering new information, seek

to establish order and to assure ourselves we are moving toward correct

answers, force parallels from new information with previous knowledge

and experience about situations (including products and services).

This explains why it can be so difficult for a company to overcome bad

first impressions, even if those impressions are made by imperfect and

inaccurate inference, e.g. if a toy is made in China, the quality is poor

and it may contain toxic ingredients.

Conversely, positive schemas are equally powerful, thus explaining

why some people favour one brand of automobile their entire lives even

though objective evidence can easily be found to prove that other

brands are superior in almost every way.

Schema theory asserts that we are so determined to establish familiar

and comfortable patterns when processing new information that we sub-

consciously reject much of that that does not fit; we immediately cate-

gorize it as irrelevant and thus not worth committing to our biological

hard drive—our brains. Our tendency to reject information is one of the

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greatest challenges to marketers.

Research reveals numerous psychological processes are involved, and

there is extensive research in this area that serious marketers would do

well to explore in more depth than can be devoted here. Consider this

only the briefest introduction to:

selective perception

selective comprehension and distortion

selective retention

selective exposure

Selective perception

Selective perception occurs when we categorize and interpret incoming

stimuli (sight, sound, olfactory, etc.) and decide whether or not to

acknowledge it consciously. Our brains, working in a near subconscious

state, are good at selecting what we want to notice or ignore.

For example, when you need a new car, you start to notice car dealer-

ships and attend (pay attention) to vehicles on the road that approximate

the models you find most appealing. Likewise, new mothers notice oth-

er women with babies and are receptive to anything and everything that

has to do with motherhood. And, if you’re driving along a freeway strip

when you’re hungry, suddenly the mishmash of fast-food signs snap

sharply into view whereas just a half hour before the hunger pangs hit,

they were totally blocked out.

Our brains select and sort in milliseconds, so simply stated, selective

perception occurs when consumers process incoming stimuli that meets

their needs. That makes perception the first challenge for marketers,

and it explains why many advertisers use sensory shock tactics to en-

sure that we notice what it is that they are trying to sell. If they can’t get

us to first attend (to perceive), they can’t impart any of their message.

Selective Comprehension and Distortion

Getting our attention isn’t nearly enough, though, because even noticed

incoming stimuli isn’t always interpreted the way marketers want it to

be. Selective comprehension and distortion describe the tendency for

consumers to interpret information they have perceived in ways that

support existing knowledge, attitudes and past experiences. As such, we

enter the arena of beliefs, values, and biases. When marketers enter

such deeply seated regions of human psyches, we begin to better appre-

ciate why positive perceptions are so important for advertisers to foster.

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Rule of thumb for advertising

Create what you believe is a totally

comprehensive plan for each advertising initiative.

Now, do three times that much

to get the 20 impressions detailed at right. Most people

under estimate ad impacts and stop short.

More on this in the chapter that deals with advertising.

Because we comprehend and distort information so it fits with our pre-

conceptions, we tend to accept or reject many products and services to

be consistent with beliefs we have about brands and brand associations.

Consider people who will drink nothing but Coke, or drive nothing but

a Toyota, contending that competitors are just not good enough. Re-

search, however, has shown that comprehension and distortion are high-

ly evident in blind marketing tests where consumers are unable to dis-

tinguish between their favourite brands and competitor products.

Still, in marketing perception is reality, and this explains why it is so

important for companies to never turn customers off. Turning them

back on again can be a very, very difficult process thanks to our com-

mitment to comprehend and distort in concert with what we choose to

believe.

Selective Retention

Suppose, with your marketing message, that you’ve managed to achieve

perception and haven’t been derailed by comprehension or distortion. Is

the sale made? Not necessarily. People still fail to register and retain

much of the incoming stimuli because memory is an active process,

much like hitting the save key on your computer; if there is no deliber-

ate energy expended to “save,” information can come into our brains

but be forgotten scant seconds later because we’ve moved on to some-

thing else.

Selective retention is strengthened by repeated positive experiences and

by repeated marketing exposure. This is why Mcdonald’s keeps adver-

tising even though it’s difficult to believe anyone could ever forget the

company exists. This to say, we retain memory about products or ser-

vices when we have strong needs, memorable experiences, and when

we can easily connect to dominant brands through prolonged exposure.

Selective Exposure

Finally, we have selective exposure, whereby consumers deliberately

select which marketing channels they willingly expose themselves to.

Consider that people tend to read only magazines that interest them and

not those that don’t. We aggressively mute television ads, or choose

those times to leave the room. And, of course, there’s even technology

that screens advertisements out of television programming. These are

just a few examples of how people control marketing messages before

perception can even occur. As the range of products and services con-

stantly expands globally, we can expect more people to get even more

aggressive about selective exposure. Another challenge for marketers.

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W hen you place an ad, you likely go in active search to see or hear

it. People we target, however, aren’t so emotionally invested. In

fact, as the previous pages reveal, we deliberately seek to filter out

anything we deem as irrelevant.

It means you need to advertise and promote often enough to be there

when customers’ wants and needs converge in your favour. Nineteenth-

century marketer Thomas Smith knew this, as evidenced by advice he

gave to advertisers in 1885. It applies more than ever today:

1. The first time people look at any given ad, they don't even see it.

2. The second time, they don't notice it.

3. The third time, they are aware that it is there.

4. The fourth rime, they have a fleeting sense that they've seen it

somewhere before.

5. The fifth time, they actually read the ad.

6. The sixth time, they thumb their nose at it.

7. The seventh time, they start to get a little irritated with it.

8. The eighth time, they start to think, "Here's that confounded ad

again."

9. The ninth time, they start to wonder if they may be missing out on

something.

10. The tenth time, they ask friends and neighbours if they've tried it.

11. The eleventh time, they wonder how the company is paying for all

these ads.

12. The twelfth time, they start to think that it must be a good product.

13. The thirteenth time, they start to feel the product has value.

14. The fourteenth time, they start to remember wanting a product

exactly like this for a long time.

15. The fifteenth time, they start to yearn for it because they can't

afford to buy it.

16. The sixteenth time, they accept the fact that they will buy it

sometime in the future.

17. The seventeenth time, they make a note to buy the product.

18. The eighteenth time, they curse their poverty for not allowing them

to buy this terrific product.

19. The nineteenth time, they count their money very carefully.

20. The twentieth time prospects see the ad, they buy what is offered.

Be aware of psychological selectivity

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Meta Marketing Intro 12 Ps and Selectivity