Marketing War Games – Revisited

Recently, I had the good fortune to facilitate a series of marketing war games for a large consumer package goods brand.  The outcome of this marketing exercise exceeded all of our expectations.  Participants gained a better understanding of the marketplace, their competitors, and the key strategies they needed to develop and execute.   Entrepreneurs should consider investing the time and energy to conduct marketing war games to challenge and improve the way they are currently going to market.

Tom McMillian

When thinking about Marketing War Games, focus on the idea of marketing games.  Think about spending a day, role playing, having fun, looking at your business in new ways, examining the competition from the inside, and looking at your business critically from the outside.  This is a day of learning and re-evaluating the way your team looks at the world. Do not be turned off by the “War” in Marketing War Games.  Focus on the idea of Marketing & Games and coming up with profit-building strategies.

One way to conduct marketing war games is to have two rounds.  In the first round, your teams play the role of major competitive players and develop plans for the next year and then present their findings to all participants.  In the second round, the teams become themselves and develop plans with the understanding of what the competition may be doing over the next year.  Again, there is a group sharing.

Now, ins tead of marketing plans built on legacy inward looking thinking, you can build your plans with a more thorough understanding of the marketplace, the category, and competition.

How to conduct Marketing War Games

• Set aside a day.
• Recruit enough people for two teams and assign a Leader and a Scribe to each team.
• Make sure each team has a marketing person and someone from sales.
• Prepare and send out ahead of time as ‘homework’, briefing packets that include competitive product information, observations (SWOTs), press releases, and links to websites and online social media activities.  If possible, actually have competitive product and promotional pieces available for when a team is pretending to be the competition.
• Remember, that you are playing a game.  Embrace looking at the world from the perspective of your competition.  Be playful
• While pretending to be the competition, be prepared to critically look at your own business.
• During the second round, the teams become themselves again and develop objectives, strategies and tactics built on the first rounds learning and insights.
• At the end of the day remember to thank everyone for their time, energy and critical thinking.

Remember during the Marketing War Games, sometimes the “Emperor really has no clothes”.  In otherword, this is the time to recognize your weaknesses and exploit those weaknesses.  During the session, the task at hand is to ask folks to articulate the following for the competition — Objectives, Strategies, and Tactics.  Plus, ask the scribes to record the answers on their laptops.  This will be very helpful when sharing with the entire group and later when results are analyzed and new plans are developed.  Additionally, you may want to designate another scribe to capture the insights during the group discussion periods.

After the Games

Synthesize the results into clear insights and strategies.  Consider capturing results under the headings of – Major Themes, Biggest Threats, Response to Competition, and Recommendations.

A surprising outcome, when play-acting as the competition, is that the participants come up with clear powerful articulated strategies.  Many times these competitive strategies are better than their own business strategies when going into the games.  Sometimes these initial strategies are muddled and built upon legacy viewpoints that no longer adhered to the competitive situation going into the future.

Reconsider current plans in light of your new insights and update your plans and marketing spending.  Challenge yourself to focus on the three most critical activities you need to accomplish to make your product a success in the marketplace.

Remember, “Plans are nothing, Planning is everything”.  Always, be prepared to thoughtfully adjust your plans to maximize your profitable sales.  Marketing War Games provide a fresh actionable way for entrepreneurs to improve their planning and the way they go to market.

Tom McMillian is the president of Techtao, LLC

This blog was previously published within  New Jersey Entrepreneur where Tom McMillian is recognized as the New Jersey’s Marketing Expert.

Entrepreneurs – The Most Important Thing

During my first job out of business school, a wise businessperson, Tony Hall, asked a group of us this question, “What is the most important thing for a successful business?”

• A great product
• Strong management
• Dedicated employees
• Customers
• Compelling advertising
• Good marketing
• A thoughtful business
• A unifying mission statement

Tony went around the table letting each of us provide an answer; no consensus was reached.  Tony then emphatically told us in no uncertain terms that the most important thing for a successful business was CUSTOMERS.

Over the years, I’ve thought about Tony’s question and his answer.  I’ve worked for large companies such as Pfizer & J&J as well as small companies and start-ups, and Tony was absolutely right.  Customers are the most important part of any successful business.  This is doubly true for the entrepreneur.

Sometimes, entrepreneurs mistakenly believe that anyone who provides capital (e.g. cash) is a customer.  This includes Angel Investors, Venture Capitalists (VCs), customers (buyers), and end-consumers.  Granted, Angel Investors and Venture Capitalists do provide capital along with advice.  However, they provide capital at a huge premium – 30% to 70% of your company.

Within this hierarchy of “customers”, I would rate the actual person who makes the buying decision for your product or service as the most important part of a new venture.  You should have a relationship with this person.  Ask probing questions and listen for their needs and where they need assistance.  When first working with your customers, be in listening and learning mode.  Take what you learn and improve your product or service.  If your product or service truly addresses the needs of the buyer, selling is easy.  Ask them about the competition.  Learn about pricing and terms.  If possible, see if you can get a commitment to buy from this customer.  With a group of committed customers, you may not need to go to Angel Investors or VCs for capital and you will retain the ownership of you company.

Once you learn about the real needs of the customer, the salvation and growth of your company depends on not only meeting the needs of the customer, but also continuing to delight the customer.  A delight customer is your best advocate and evangelist.   Furthermore, remember what W. Edward Deming said, “Profit in business comes from repeat customers, customers that boast about your project or service, and that bring friends with them.”

Tom McMillian is the president of Techtao, LLC a marketing consultancy.

This article was previously published in the New Jersey Entrepreneur magazine where Tom is recognized at New Jersey’s Marketing Expert