Employing critical thinking when marketing is all too important today due to the numerous paths available towards reaching a goal. Consider that you can employ an array of marketing strategies from word-of-mouth marketing, to social media marketing, radio and television, and within each channel there are numerous paths that you can employ to reach your goal.
To reach a particular goal in marketing for instance let’s say that you want to double your business by the end of the year, or you want to triple it, or you want to grow your market share, today you can accomplish that through any number tactics and it’s important to understand what tactics fit well with your business. Because while it may be possible to accomplish and reach a desired outcome in any number of ways, critical thinking involves assessing which marketing effort is going to get you there under budget, which one will be most efficient given your particular strengths and weaknesses, and a whole host of other factors that we want to consider when making a cogent effort towards marketing.
However employing critical thinking when marketing isn’t something relegated to a chief marketing officer at a large corporation, no, it falls on you, that is, if you’re actually serious about growing a business.
Employing critical thinking when marketing
Employing critical thinking in marketing is not a difficult feat, it involves information, and an honest valuation of strengths when it comes to understanding what is necessary. I work with a lot of growing businesses in various sectors, and I always explain to my clients that marketing is fundamentally the same. We want first to define an objective, or a series of objectives, and then implement the steps that helps our prospective clients engage with and complete those objectives. The key thing being defining objectives.
We want first to define an objective, or a series of objectives, and then implement the steps that helps our prospective clients engage with and complete those objectives
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Let’s take an example of a client in the B2B space, that sells services to other businesses. The first step in this marketing process would be to understand and define the objective. Now it’s not closing a deal, not at all, and it shouldn’t be. The objective is lead generation, or in other words creating an opportunity for a relationship to happen. And what are opportunities for relationships? It’s the first time that you are able to get on a phone call, an email, or a face-to-face with a prospective client. Now understand this is not closing the deal, the goal here is communication.
This is getting the chance to communicate in real-time with a prospect. Because that is when you begin to build the necessary relationship towards a deal.
Creating opportunities for business relationships to happen
Critical thinking is granular thinking, it involves looking at multiple steps, for instance if we do this, then it may result in this or that, consequently we should prepare for this by doing ABC or prepare for the other by doing XYZ. Critical thinking requires information and information requires thinking. Now what goes into thinking depends on what we put into it. And in order for our intellect to work, properly, we need to feed it information so that it can produce good ideas.
Marketing is varied, and as I mentioned earlier, when embarking on a cogent marketing plan you want to be clear on your strengths and weaknesses so that you can leverage the perfect marketing tactic that can work with your strengths. Furthermore reviewing the varied marketing tactics and strategies that are available, from email marketing to content targeting, you want to assess which ones are best fitted towards working with your strengths and creating opportunities for relationships to happen.
Critical thinking requires information and information requires thinking. Now what goes into thinking depends on what we put into it. And in order for our intellect to work, properly, we need to feed it information so that it can produce good ideas.
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All this is work in and of itself, and this is really where it is important to delve into the options, or at least consult with a marketing expert who is able to help with the understanding necessary to make informed decisions. Employing critical thinking when marketing isn’t hard at all, it’s simply 50% of your business activities.
The same sweat and effort with which you have built your organization / business, it will involve the same effort to communicate, create awareness and engage with that group of people who may be interested in the product or service you have to offer. This will include market research, defining objectives, or a series of objectives, and putting this all together in a cohesive system that works in tandem with your business.
Critical thinking is defining those pieces of the puzzle needed to complete the picture, this requires education on what those pieces are, and information to know which of the puzzle pieces come together. The other part of employing critical thinking in marketing is putting those tactical pieces together to form a picture that resonates with your target audience.
