Media Update attended Helen McIntee’s Marketing 101 seminar. Director of the IMM Graduate School and president of The African Marketing Confederation, McIntee has years of experience in the marketing industry.

Her talk, titled ‘Managing Risk during Difficult Times’ focused on marketing management and setting up a marketing plan. She said the most important thing when setting out is to be “be realistic and gentle with your marketing plan”. She said that patience and innovative thinking pays off as long as marketers keep end goals in sight and address all the issues they identify from the start of their plan.

McIntee stressed the importance of keeping the target market in mind. “Marketers are often so product orientated they forget about the market, you need to ask yourself what you are really doing, you need to think of the product definition and the market separately." She fondly recalled a previous Revlon employees words; “I don’t sell make-up, I sell hope,” and encouraged her audience to broaden their minds when considering how to market their products or services.

She said those marketing services instead of products need to approach their marketing plans in different ways. She listed the many ways products and services differ but said that what it all boils down to is knowledge. “Knowledge is absolutely paramount,” she said, “know your product, know your customer and know your competition.”

She shared the following pointers on each:

Know your product

  • Is your product clearly different?
  • Is it up-to-date technologically?
  • Have you considered price sensitivity?
  • Can your product be substituted by something cheaper or more accessible?
  • Does your product have a sell-by date?

Know your customer

  • You need to know who they are now and who they will be in five years
  • Know their age, income level, gender, education and mobility
  • Know their level of loyalty and the company’s relationship to the customer


Know your competition

  • Is there a clear market leader? How is your product positioned again it?
  • Define and describe your competitive positioning
  • Conduct a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis
  • Identify drivers of competition in the market
  • Are there any significant barriers to enter the market?


McIntee said that when it comes to laying out a marketing plan “you don’t need huge amounts of money, you need to think innovatively”.

Markex runs until Thursday, 4 June at the Sandton Convention Centre.

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