Better Marketing!
So says author and senior marketing advisor, Carl Jarvis, in his new book ‘Marketing for Manufacturers – Why 80% of small to mid-size manufacturers mismanage their marketing and what to do about it!’ due for release in May 2017.
Having identified a significant marketing gap in manufacturing, he’s on a mission to greatly improve the growth of SME manufacturing businesses, create significant jobs in Manufacturing and show business owners how to build predictable, profitable and sustainable platforms for growth… through better marketing.
Across the UK, according to the Office for National Statistics, there are nearly 24,000 small manufacturers (10-49 Employees) and 6,000 mid-size manufacturers (50-249 Employees) with estimated revenues of at least £151billion per annum, directly employing over 1.1million people.
Yet, in his book Carl says: “Despite the fact that there’s almost universal recognition that most UK small to mid-size (SME) manufacturers make and offer high-quality or even world-class products and services, there’s an equally widespread acknowledgement that they are just as universally poor at marketing them.”
With many muttering the immortal phrase: “Our products are the best kept secret in the market!”
The Lost £24billion:
Because of this inherent sector-wide weakness, Carl estimates that around 80% of small to mid-size manufacturers mismanage their sales and marketing practices, creating at least an average 20% shortfall in the revenue generation across each manufacturer. These poor, inconsistent, and ineffective marketing practises, across those 80%, are invariably leading to a loss, in our economy, of £24billon a year, inevitably causing a loss of some 135,000 jobs and apprenticeship places per annum.
In fact, one of the top five reasons stated for all business failure is ‘poor and inconsistent marketing.’
Carl believes this is caused by SME manufacturing company owners and managers being constrained by their old industrial age thinking, having personally found, with his 18 years in private marketing practice, there to be a general underlying indifference and apathy towards embracing marketing at the level they should.
In “Marketing for Manufacturers” he attempts to identify and address this marketing issue, head-on, and to bring about a greater awareness of the false bias and unconscious values, beliefs and attitudes manufacturers’ behaviour demonstrates, in how they view their marketing practises and investments…or lack of them.
Too many SME Manufacturing business owners are running, what he calls, a grossly distorted or warped business. This is where most companies have a concentrated focus and disciplined approach to their product, service and production capabilities, many also have a focused approach to their financial information (through the external discipline of taxes, Inland Revenue and Accountants) but when it comes to their Marketing, well, it’s a-bit-of-this and a-bit-of-that when they get around to it. This invariably leads to marketing being the most undisciplined discipline in their business. If they ran their production or finances the way they run their marketing they’d soon be in a mess.
So, they’re out of balance with this huge emphasis on their product/service/production capability and hardly any emphasis on their marketing. Hence the warped unbalanced business framework.
What Is This Great Marketing Gap?
The marketing pressure is now on, especially as the gap between the old marketing baseline and the new marketing requirements is now widening at an exponential pace. In fact, change itself is changing, as we move from incremental change to, now, exponential change being the norm. So, every year that passes, where ineffective or poor marketing is still being carried out, the gap is becoming more extensive and progressively worse for each SME manufacturer that is not embracing this ever-changing and widening gap.
What is interesting is when we hear a great deal of lip service being paid regarding marketing activities. In several of the SME feedback reports, from many business support agencies, manufacturers often point out they are interested in information about marketing, but this is not being translated in to real tangible marketing adoption or implementation. The connection between heart and head is definitely blocked.
Perhaps too many manufacturers think they are immune to the changes in the marketing environment. In many cases, they grew up not needing to seriously consider marketing. In fact, if we go back far enough there wasn’t a need for marketing. If you wanted to buy a motorbike, a bicycle, or a camera you had to buy it from the UK because we were the only place in the world that made them. But we cannot adopt a new marketing mind-set whilst holding on to that old mode of thinking. The ‘Build a better mouse trap and the whole world will beat a path to your door’ no longer applies.
In some cases, we need to let go of the old position of pure manufacturing superiority, expressed in the phrase: “But we make the highest quality products and offer the best service in the world.” Holding on to that claim is becoming more and more difficult to maintain as the cracks start to appear. Whereas, today, there is no-doubt that the quality of a manufacturer’s marketing can be a heavily influential and a decisive factor in the success or failure of the business, over and above the quality of the product or service. Manufacturers are now entering a time when they have to seriously respond to the changing needs of their marketing practises and priorities.
Carl believes this is evidenced in manufacturers widespread denial that something is changing.
They think they can carry on doing the same old marketing and expect a different, improved, result, not even entertaining the possibility of the new 21st Century marketing mind-set required, especially with the rise of the new marketing environment.
He says: “I think the emotional process of manufacturers letting go of the old marketing mind-set will be a very tough challenge, especially as it’s so engrained in their general psyche.”
Carl’s book intends to educate and inspire SME Manufacturers to value marketing and shares his thoughts and experiences about the 21st century changes that clearly need to be embraced with the new marketing challenges facing SME manufacturers. Especially, now, in the wake of Brexit.
He said: “Getting the new balance of marketing for manufacturers right will have a major positive impact on the UK economy and make our manufacturing base an even stronger powerhouse for job creation and prosperity, along with all the dramatic economic benefits that this would bring to our nation and our standing in the world’s manufacturing economy.”
It appears Carl’s goal and objective in his book is to raise awareness, plus raise the marketing standards, right across our entire SME manufacturing sector by getting manufacturers to believe in, value, and invest in the level of marketing that will make a dramatic impact on the success of their businesses, and by extension, the UK economy.
So, he’s on a mission to help manufacturing companies strengthen this weakness so they can consistently increase their sales, improve their profits, fill their order books, grow their businesses, and boost jobs and employment within the UK small to mid-size manufacturing sector.
He says: “I’d go as far as to say this book is better described as a CAUSE rather than just a marketing book.”
Carl’s book: ‘Marketing for Manufacturers – Why 80% of small to mid-size manufacturers mismanage their marketing and what to do about it!’ will be available on Amazon end of May 2017
Carl has also published a special FREE Marketing Report called: ‘The 7 Major Marketing Mistakes Too Many Manufacturers Make and How To Correct Them!’ which you can download from his website, where you can also access his free purpose built online marketing assessment tool. For full details visit: www.carljarvis.com/free-report
