In the vast and ever-increasing landscape of marketing strategy mumbo-jumbo, one quote stands out as a beacon of clarity and insight:
“The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits them and sells itself.” – Peter Drucker
At Woven, this is our favourite marketing quote of all time, and for good reason. Peter Drucker, hailed as the godfather of strategic marketing thinking, encapsulates in this one sentence the essence of effective marketing — and successful business.
The Heart of the Matter: Marketing is Not a Veneer
Drucker’s quote goes to the heart of the biggest issue most businesses face with marketing: they see it as a veneer, a superficial layer to be pasted on after all the ‘important’ strategic business decisions have been made.
This couldn’t be further from the truth.
What Drucker says here is that marketing belongs at the core of the business. If a business doesn’t understand its audience and customers, then what is the business plan based on? This understanding is fundamental to the business’s existence.
The Fundamental Questions
To embrace Drucker’s philosophy, businesses need to ask themselves some fundamental questions:
- What are you really selling?
- What are your customers really buying?
These questions seem simple on the surface but require deep introspection and customer understanding to answer correctly. Let’s look at a few examples:
- If you’re a travel business, are people buying holidays, or are they buying memories?
- If you’re selling yachts, are customers buying a boat, or are they buying exclusivity, a sense of escapism, or even a sanctuary?
Once these fundamental questions have been answered, they inform every aspect of the business, from product design to marketing strategy.
The Steve Jobs Paradox
Interestingly, this philosophy of deep customer understanding seems at odds with the approach of one of the most successful businessmen of our time: Steve Jobs. Jobs was notoriously not interested in consumer research, famously stating: “There’s no point asking people what they want because they don’t know.”
However, what’s fascinating — and what was probably Steve Jobs’s genius — is that despite not conducting formal research, he somehow did know what people wanted. He was able to instinctively anticipate what would excite and thrill his potential customers. This understanding was enough to build the most valuable brand in the history of the world.
Henry Ford was similarly instinctive in his approach, famously stating: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
Jobs’s insight was simple yet profound: computers were scary and complicated; for widespread adoption to take place, they had to be friendlier. This one piece of insight was enough to separate Apple from the rest of the pack and kickstart the home computer revolution.
The Pitfalls of Superficial Market Research
Unfortunately, many businesses conduct superficial market research that yields obvious and unhelpful results. At Woven, we’ve seen cases where companies spend tens of thousands on research only to come back with findings like ‘people want to buy a bed are interested in comfort, quality and price.’
This is not insight. The insights that drive fantastic products and marketing go much deeper. They’re based on psychology more than behaviour.
Digging Deeper: The Real Motivations
To truly understand your customers, you need to dig deeper. For example, what really drives someone to buy a new bed?
- Is it because they’re waking up tired?
- Is it because they want to cure their bad back?
- Is it because they’ve just started a new relationship and they want to impress their partner?
The actual end benefit of buying that bed is definitely not just about quality, comfort and price. These are basic hygiene factors that every product in that sector needs to fulfil — and not where we’ll find a powerful differentiator.
The Woven Approach: Beyond Demographics
We help brands look beyond these surface-level so-called insights. We’re far more interested in psychographics than demographics, going beyond outmoded slicing and dicing based on sex, age and income.
Instead, we focus on understanding what makes our potential customers tick:
- What excites them?
- What are their hopes and fears?
- What does success look like?
- How do they see themselves?
These are the kinds of soul-searching questions we need to explore with our audiences in order for our products, branding and business to stand out.
Marketing: More Than Just Promotion
When Drucker talks about marketing, he’s not just referring to promotion or advertising. Another famous Drucker quote states that “Business is nothing but innovation and marketing.” When he talks about marketing, he’s talking about a fundamental aspect of business itself.
This perspective nails it: you need to innovate the business model or the product, and then you just need to tell the right audience that you have built something they’re going to love. It’s that simple.
The Right Order of Operations
However, this simplicity only works if things are done in the right order. Too often, we find businesses and products that are a poor fit for the market, and then, as marketers, we’re asked to sell them.
This is looking down the wrong end of the telescope. Far better to understand the requirements first and then make better products or services that actually deliver what your customers really want.
The Real Question Drucker is Posing
This is the real question Drucker is asking in his famous quote. It’s a challenge for businesses to flip their perspective:
- First, truly understand your customers and their needs.
- Then, create products or services that meet those needs perfectly.
- Finally, communicate to your audience how your offering solves their problems or fulfils their desires.
When done in this order, your marketing strategy becomes less about convincing people to buy something they may not need, and more about connecting people with solutions that genuinely improve their lives.
Conclusion: The Power of Customer-Centric Business
In today’s highly competitive business environment, Drucker’s wisdom is more relevant than ever. By putting the customer at the centre of everything — from product development to marketing strategy — businesses can create offerings that truly resonate with their audience.
At Woven, we’re committed to helping our clients embrace this customer-centric approach. We dig deep to uncover the real motivations and desires of your target audience, helping you create products and services that not only meet needs but exceed expectations.
Remember, in the words of Peter Drucker, the goal is to understand your customers so well that your product or service fits them perfectly and sells itself. When you achieve this level of customer understanding and alignment, you’re not just marketing effectively — you’re building a business that can stand the test of time.
Are you ready to embrace this transformative approach to business and marketing strategy?
Contact Woven today and let’s work together to truly understand your customers and create offerings that resonate deeply with them. It’s time to stop pasting on marketing as an afterthought and start building your entire business around a deep understanding of your customer.