CHAPTER 2 - Marketing
In chapter one of this personal essay, I have shared my thoughts on customer service, experience, capital and location. Further in this following chapter, I would briefly review specific facets of marketing. I would not elaborate on specific tools such as price and product as I believe this reverts to understanding your target market. Pricing in the industry has created many unsatisfied and displeased customers as well as unprofitable events. Yet, it is the only marketing tool that creates profit for businesses.
In the creation of fruitful customer service and experience, planning is required. In my experience, businesses in the industry with a strong brand positioning and a foundation of existing marketing plans were knowledgeable about their target market and had creatively established a following of which they can build. On the other hand, for the majority of smaller businesses, the knowledge and understanding of target markets was absent and thus led to unsuccessful planning and poor execution of events. For the most part, knowing who your consumers are is very important. Understanding your target market is the ONLY way you can create fruitful experiences. Knowing what your customer wants and knowing how to reach them is by first knowing WHO they are. From another vantage point as to why creating exceptional service and experience was so impactful in the industry as it incorporated many opinion leaders and was highly influenced by word-of-mouth marketing which was a huge factor for businesses successes. Direct contact with consumers creates a major factor in business marketing.
Another observation was that "marketing" – i.e. the marketing concept was rarely used in this industry. It was strictly a "selling" approach, whereby promotion and advertising were used interchangeably to be referred to as "marketing". Another frequent occurrence was the implementation of aggressive mass marketing, which was occasionally successful for a small number of businesses. The sole aim of the businesses' "marketing campaigns" in the industry was attention. Each promoter was seeking to gain attention for his events or services from the masses. The promoter who was competent in acquiring the most attention of the masses made the money in the marketplace. In addition, each business or promoter had its unique brand positioning - some of which were bad and some good. Still, that played a critical factor in attendance and market feedback. The businesses that were negatively positioned in the marketplace was mainly a consequence of the shortcoming of knowledge regarding their perfect fit.
Apart from word-of-mouth marketing, the speed and extent to which attention was disseminated and obtain through the marketplace depended largely on communications between the promoter and consumers, and to some extent, the social system in which he operated. Although the right channel of communication obtained the "attention" the promoter was seeking, some aspects sometimes limited the promoter to properly deliver his message to his audience and therefore resulted in an unsatisfactory outcome. For instance, in the entertainment industry, there was favouritism – and nothing is wrong with that. But favouritism mostly in the media and sponsorship was prevalent, which sometimes made it difficult for the smaller upcoming businesses to penetrate the marketplace and thus hindering their success.
Finally, although creativity and innovation were prominent aspects of the industry, there was still numerous followers or imitators and very few originalities, creation of new ideas and or innovative products and services. Therefore, in my opinion, I believe that the businesses and promoters who were principally followers or imitators were seeking to attain a broad acceptance from the market as swiftly as possible, in an attempt to obtain a huge market share, awareness, status and following.
This brings me to the end of chapter two. Besides marketing and customer service, another integral aspect of my tenure in the industry is in human resources. Although I would not create an entire chapter on human resources, the team composition of entertainment businesses was a critical component of human resources. Every business needs an A team to survive in these competitive markets, and within the entertainment industry, your team can make or break you.
Subsequently, in chapter three, I will briefly review my final thoughts.