Top 10 Project Marketing Tips

Marketing is a part of organizations that should receive adequate attention yet often doesn't, which relates to the nature of marketing itself. Marketing is not equivalent to sales; generally speaking, marketing does not directly generate results, and so without measurable standards, its impact often goes unnoticed. There's a classic saying in the advertising industry: "I know half of my advertising spend is wasted, but I don't know which half," perfectly capturing the dilemma of marketing.

In companies with scale in producing and selling mass consumer goods, marketing is often executed according to textbook theories. This is because in the market of standardized product sales, extensive research has been conducted over the years, resulting in a set of effective methods. Even if lacking in innovation, there are plenty of references and competitors to draw from—membership systems, promotional discounts, advertising... all the methods and techniques from system to implementation are quite comprehensive. Participants, even with innovative opportunities, might opt for marketing activities similar to their competitors to avoid losing in competition. As for the outcomes of marketing, they generally receive varying degrees of feedback from overall sales and the like.

Yet in organizations led by projects and professional services, marketing often becomes one of the weakest links. Many such organizations do not even have a dedicated unit, instead blending it with administrative, sales, or IT departments. Even if a marketing department is established, its functions might be unclear and unable to fulfill the crucial role it should play in the organization's market strategy. This essay outlines and summarizes the ten most important aspects of marketing functions in project-oriented organizations for reference. Paying attention to these aspects can lead to higher marketing productivity and greater returns, or the opposite.

1. Market Segmentation

No one can win on all battlefields; any organization can only choose the domain it excels in to stand a chance of victory. Thus, the first priority in marketing is to select the best niche market and establish a strong positioning in each chosen market. Directions and domains cannot represent market segments, just like "selling instant noodles" cannot be a market segment position, though it's less obvious. Identifying the most suitable market segment from the organization's genes, technological accumulation, and strategic direction is the most crucial part of marketing and provides guidance for all business activities.

2. Understand Customers

In the consumer goods market, new products generally undergo trial phases and market research to understand customers’ needs, perceptions, preferences, and behaviors, determining whether the product matches the target market customers. In project-based marketing, this step is often neglected, mainly because marketers might not be trained to handle such seemingly scattered and diverse states and needs. In this context, meaningful conclusions require tools and methods, a point we will revisit. Marketing needs to organize the products and services the organization can offer across different dimensions, similarly categorize and label customers by industry, region, scale, etc., and based on this, segment and understand customers to motivate stakeholders to focus on and satisfy customer needs.

3. Understand Competitors

If an organization cannot identify potential or explicit competitors during market analysis, there might be several reasons: the organization indeed holds an absolute leading edge, the organization has entered a business wasteland, or market research and positioning work is inadequate. The last possibility is most apparent. Researching and understanding competitors can be done in many ways, including publicly disclosed information from listed companies, government and open tender systems, and information disclosed by competitors and third parties. The importance of competitors should never be underestimated; they not only reveal the rise and fall of the industry but also help identify your niche market and competitive advantage.

4. Build Partnerships

Just as important as finding competitors is identifying potential partners and establishing partnerships with stakeholders, offering them substantial rewards. Partners might be upstream suppliers, business agents, or other business associates. We are obliged to maintain good relationships with partners and ensure they fully understand our business model and products, just as we must ensure internal department members understand the organization's core business and direction. These are the organization's most powerful promotional tools; understanding business helps build confidence and pride among internal members and partners, enabling the strongest promotional efforts and becoming a dynamic force in corporate promotion.

5. Identify Opportunities

Marketing planning should include tools and methods for identifying opportunities. These tools might consist of a series of tables, but in the information age, informatization tools are a better means. Unlike public pricing strategies for consumer goods, project-based organizations face ever-changing opportunities and challenges. Marketing must support sales staff (these supports are more likely initiated by cross-departmental working groups led by the marketing department). We cannot entirely rely on salespeople's intuition for opportunity judgment; even the most seasoned salespeople can sometimes make foolish decisions. Therefore, a series of quantitative (or less strictly quantitative) evaluation tools help organizations avoid general risks, reduce wasted efforts by sales and technical staff, and improve operational efficiency.

6. Manage Plans

A complete marketing plan should be closely related to the organization's strategy, financial status, R&D progress, and production capacity. Missing any part affects the accuracy of the marketing plan. Through marketing planning and plans, insightful long-term or short-term arrangements can be made, forming the foundation for smooth business operations. Marketing plans might be detailed or rough, or they might be continually revised and improved, but more important than these is having a plan and then implementing it.

7. Control Scale

Marketing must exert strong control over the product and service mix. In product-type organizations, this usually isn't a fatal issue; even if a company like Coca-Cola decides to add ten new flavors this year, it’s still constrained by existing factory capacity. However, in project-based organizations, lack of such intuitive capacity planning often leads to blind expansion. People are also a production resource; software companies have long incorporated human resources into project planning (as seen in Microsoft Project software), and marketing needs a clear understanding of organizational capacity. Strictly limiting product and service directions and scale based on capacity avoids the paradox of business and resources.

8. Build a Brand

Brand building varies with times and strategies. In the product realm, the most direct means is often advertising, though methods, content, and even channels and intensity of advertising differ greatly across eras. For project-based organizations, brand and influence must also be established, yet the methods differ significantly from product-type organizations. Traditionally, occupying positions and expressing opinions in authoritative organizations or publications is effective, though in the information age, these methods have shifted. More organizations are using cost-effective communication and promotion tools to build strong brands and closer ties with users.

9. Coordinate Teams

Marketing should be a guiding department within the organization, responsible for establishing leadership and team spirit across departments. Marketing should maintain the closest contact with all business departments, acting as eyes and ears to gather more information, which is then digested, analyzed, and fed back to business departments as action guidelines. The significance and value of a marketing team lie more in its guidance and assistance to other departments, while an isolated marketing team might be useless within the organization.

10. Improve Skills

Marketing skill levels are reflected in theory, efficiency, and practice. Theoretical knowledge aids more scientific and effective marketing activities, while efficiency improvements require workflows, informatization tools, and technical means. Practice demands more proactive communication and accumulation. A continuously advancing high-level marketing department serves as an essential command unit within the organization, and advanced technologies and tools like information systems, web crawlers, and data analysis make marketing more efficient and accurate, hence highly significant.

The Art of War says, "The best warfare strategy is to attack the enemy's plans" and "The victorious army first wins and then seeks battle." For an organization to gain an advantage amidst constant change, it must plan thoroughly before acting. Conducting comprehensive, deep, advanced, continuously iterative and improved marketing activities is an effective measure to ensure organizational strategy implementation. This responsibility lies not only with the marketing department but with all managers who must give it enough attention.