The Basics of Marketing Remain Unchanged

This guest post is by By Jay Conrad Levinson

Everybody and their cousin is so agog at the many changes in marketing and technology that many of them lose sight of the vast abundance of things that haven't changed. Important as it is, the Internet is not where the sun rises and sets. Dynamic as it is, technology is not the key to marketing success. Marketing is about people, not things. And people have not changed. So...

The basics of marketing are all about people, value, service and clarity. They are about planning and attitudes, about economizing and taking action. Although marketers are being offered a dazzling array of new marketing techniques, tactics and weaponry, the dazzle seems to be blinding them when it comes to the crucial fundamentals.

You certainly don't need me to remind you that all marketing is far more about people than it is about things. So the more you understand and truly do love people, for each is fascinating, the better equipped you are to market to them. You're fairly well-equipped already because you're a person, so you have a lot in common with your target audience.

The psychology of marketing requires basic knowledge of human behavior. As always, human beings do not like making decisions in a hurry and are not quick to develop relationships. They certainly do want relationships, but they've been stung in the past and they don't want to be stung again.

They have learned well to distrust much marketing because of its proclivity to exaggeration. All too many times they've read of sales at stores and learned that only a tiny selection of items were on sale. They've been bamboozled more times than you'd think by the notorious fine print on contracts. And they've been high pressured by more than one salesperson.

That's why they process your marketing communications in their unconscious minds, eventually arriving at their decisions because of an emotional reason even though they may say they are deciding based on logic. They factor a lot about you into their final decision -- how long they've heard of you, where your marketing appears, how it looks and feels to them, the quality of your offer, your convenience or lack of it, what others have said about you, and most of all, how your offering can be of benefit to their lives.

Although they state that they now want what you're selling, and they do it in a very conscious manner, you can be sure they were guided by their unconscious minds. The consistent communicating of your benefits, your message and your name has penetrated their sacred unconscious mind. They've come to feel that they can trust you and so they decide to buy.