Marketing Campaign: Capture the Wants

Marketing Campaign: Capture the Wants

Any marketing campaign, whether it is printing encyclopedia or flyers, should focus on what is important. The fundamental idea of any marketing campaign should be to meet the needs and wants of customers. The idea that is being underscored here is that your company's products or services or its quality should match exactly what customers want. In the same manner that your marketing collaterals like printing encyclopedia or custom brochures should be able to offer what is actually wanted.

Sounds easy? Not exactly. Businesses do not operate in a vacuum. The truth is, there are a lot of factors that impinge on how successful any business could be. They face threats from competition and any change in the political, economic, social environment poses a risk to the life any business.

Let us discuss these concepts to understand the dynamics in developing marketing campaigns.

First, we have to understand the most essential requirement in any campaign – to consider and understand between customer needs and wants. To understand these two, let us first recognize the difference between them. A need is a basic requirement that any person would like to satisfy. If you still remember your Psychology 101, Maslow provides some of the most basic needs that any human would want to satisfy – food, shelter, clothing, relationships, etc. Many of these needs are created because of the biological makeup of humans.

A want, on the other hand, is a broader set of cravings. They are desires for a specific product or service that would satisfy underlying needs. Consider this example to better understand the difference. Any hungry individual needs to eat. However, the type of food depends entirely on their choice. Some would settle for a sandwich while others would prefer a sit-down full-course meal. These decisions, which are wants, are shaped by social and cultural influences. More importantly, marketing campaigns help shape this decision making process.

This is where your marketing campaign should be geared at. When printing encyclopedia for example, you must focus yourself at persuading target clients to try your business. How do you do that? Let us take that hungry customer as an example. Your choice of marketing collaterals should be able to do the following things:

1. Present to the client a picture of the food that you are offering in a manner that is irresistible. For a hungry customer a succulent baby back ribs complete with side mashed potatoes and corn bread would certainly look enticing.

2. List down other menu offers to provide more choices.

3. Offer budget, family or happy-hour packages to entice would-be customers.

Wants and needs play a very important role in designing your marketing campaigns. Your collaterals (such as flyers or even strategies like printing encyclopedia) must be able to clearly distinguish between the two because what you need to focus on is to capture your target’s wants. The measure of good marketing collateral then is if that hungry person is persuaded to take you up on your offer.