But if marketing loves promotional tactics, then business can often be guilty of fixating way too much on products and features.

I’ve long used the phrase “nice landing, wrong airport” to describe some of the activity undertaken by the businesses we meet. It’s a lovely metaphor and something that hits the nail on the head.

So, how can businesses in any industry start from the right place and get to their destination in the best way possible? Well, it’s surprisingly simple.

Step 1 – Diagnosis & Research

First, you need to define and understand your customer through market research and market orientation. Research comes in many shapes. At Fantastic, we’re optimising a way to utilise synthetic research (driven by AI) alongside traditional research. Proven methods, improved by modern progress.

Market orientation is about putting the customer at the centre of the business, understanding what they want, need and value and aligning everything you do to that. This isn’t just the job of marketing. It’s a mindset that needs to run throughout an organisation. It’s based on research and evidence, not gut feeling.

Step 2 – Market strategy

The strategy stage involves looking at Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning (STP). Segmenting your market provides an overview of the size, scale and make-up of the sectors you operate in. From here you decide who to target and who to exclude. This then allows you to settle on how to position a brand to meet the needs of customers. Positioning is hugely important to any brand and, when badly executed or simply ignored, it can have devastating long-lasting effects.

Execution is where many businesses and marketers start and is done through four elements and four elements only, the 4Ps: Product, Price, Place and Promotion. To execute these properly, you must have gone through the first two stages of proper marketing.

Good organisations involve marketing in product development and pricing (because through research they should have valuable insight). Marketing teams can then give input into the place element (think of this as distribution channels) as they can help define how customers can access the products and services we sell (sometimes called physical availability). Mental availability is created through our promotional activity but that’s a whole different discussion too.

Proper marketing is straight-forward when undertaken from the right perspective. The hard part is pulling this all together, getting everyone on board and committing to a tried and tested methodology.

Marketing should not narrowly focus on products or promotional activities as these are just part of the wider strategic process. It’s imperative to start in the right place, at the beginning of an interesting and productive journey with a clear roadmap in place. That’ll get you to where you need to be going.

Gary Pattison is director of strategy and insight at Fantastic Media