Needs, Wants, Nice to Haves: What’s In a Marketing Strategy
Caid Christiansen•In our many years of working with companies across a variety of industries, interests, and areas of expertise, most of our clients have grown to understand the importance of a strong marketing strategy. As we’ve also found, however, there are still many decision makers who don’t always appreciate the difference between needs, wants, and nice to haves.
While your strategy will tell you the tactics that will work best to reach your goals and objectives, it’s hard to resist the allure of things that seem like they’d help—or at least, things that will look good. But chasing shiny objects is the last thing you should be doing in your marketing efforts.
What are needs, wants, and nice to haves, and how do they affect the way you execute your marketing strategy? Let’s have a look below.
Needs
Needs are tactics that will directly contribute to your goals, or things that you must have to succeed in your marketing plan.
If you have data that shows that your site’s lack of functionality is placing users at dead-ends and causing them to leave, a site redesign is probably a need. If your site appears to be working just fine but doesn’t look the way you want, there are probably better places to spend your money.
Needs are immediate and necessary. These should be first on your list of marketing priorities.
Wants
Wants look pretty, but may not get the results you want. In practice, a want is something you think you need. When placed alongside your goals and objectives, however, a want doesn’t pass the same test as a need. A want won’t drive immediate business growth or help get you closer to reaching your goal.
If you have a strategy that isn’t working and want to design a new site to turn things around, that site is a want. A new strategy is a need. Wants may be nice eventually, but they don’t help your business in the way that needs do. These should get much less priority in your marketing efforts.
Nice to Haves
Nice to haves look pretty and will probably help your goals, but won’t have as much of an impact as needs. Nice to haves are often small add-ons to websites, visual updates, or other tactics with a lower value-to-price ratio than your marketing priorities.
Nice to haves should be the last elements that work their way into your marketing budget. Never let nice to haves take money from your marketing priorities. In all cases, it’s best to invest the most money in those tactics that will have the most impact.
That new website may look nice, but if there’s an improvement you need to make to your product that would do a better job of growing your business, don’t you think it’s worth doing that first? What about that billboard? It may look nice on the side of the highway, but if your goal is driving ecommerce sales, is there a better place for you to spend your money?
In marketing, you should always focus on the tactics that will best help you meet your goals. That’s true whether you’re executing internally or hiring a team to manage your marketing. Break your execution plan into needs, wants, and nice to haves.
If you can’t immediately define how a tactic will help further your goals, chances are, it’s not really a need like you think.
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