Is it a trick question?

This simple question may provide the keen insight you need into your marketing team’s expertise.

As a seasoned marketer, I’ve had a successful history of championing the voice of customers. From my early days as an ad exec, and continuing through my chief marketing leadership roles, I’ve often been puzzled by this inquiry. Sounds harmless enough. It’s engaging, courteous and opens dialog. Why then could it be a trick question? And what does its answer tell you about the marketing abilities of the respondee?

To answer this, let’s go right to the heart of marketing –  the target customer. Marketing is all about understanding your target and delivering a product or service that meets both their needs and their wants – the rational and the emotional.

We, marketers, do this by diving deep into the mindset of our target – our customers, our potential customers and our competitor’s customers. We seek to learn all we can about them. We digest every bit of secondary research that is viable. We add primary research – polls, questionnaires, interviews, hands-on product and user research. We mystery shop our competitors. We go on sales calls. We go where our target goes. We read what they read. We know what they like and what they do not. We use our ingenuity to gain a deep understanding so we can craft detailed target customer personas.

“Ultimately, we channel these insights into effective marketing, business strategies and customer loyalty programs.”

This brings us back to our trick question – What do YOU think? The reality is that this is neither an impactful question nor the question I suspect most CEOs want answered. For it is not what I think, but what will the target think. As marketers, our ability to set aside our personal preferences and get into the mind and heart of the target is one of our most valuable skillsets. It is the foundation on which we engage our target and build lasting relationships, fueling business success.

I often joke around when clients ask me for my thoughts as I’m presenting marketing programs, new creative, or sales generation strategies. I’m always happy to convey my thoughts – people, humor, music, kindness and design catch my eye and speak to me personally. But I am almost never the target, except when I’m in the market for a new Steinway piano. What I think is seldom pertinent to our marketing conversation. The real question is what will the target think?

So next time you ask a marketer what do YOU think, follow it up with the question you really want answered – what will the TARGET think?