Most people believe that it is the product or service that makes a business successful. To those people, I say they are wrong. From my perspective, it is marketing that makes a company a success. Consider this example – did Starbucks invent coffee? No. Are they the only company that says they have the best coffee? Again, no. The reason why Starbucks is successful when many other coffee shops never expand beyond their neighborhood is MARKETING.
Building a quality product takes a distant back seat to building a quality marketing campaign. Of course, if you deliver an inferior product or service, it will catch up with you at some point when word gets out. However, if you make a superior product and no one has any idea it exists, you’re out of business.
Today, especially in the long tail economy, marketing an average product or service to the right person at the right time trumps a quality product or service marketed to the wrong market at the wrong time. Therefore, I contend that entrepreneurs need to focus on a strategy to attract the right customers at the right time over engineering a truly unique product of service. The field of dreams line “build it and they will come” only happens in the movies. Today, you need to build the path to the customer first and foremost.
Do you value a quality product or quality marketing strategy more?
