Tonight, I made a list of 15 things I’ve observed after 4 years of study at the University of Illinois and 4 years of professional experience in Marketing. So here they are:

1. It’s easier to sell one thing than several different products.
2. Distribution = Very Important (Duh!)
3. Marketing depends a lot on product quality – what can you do for the user/customer? What problems can you solve? Seth Godin talks about this quite often.
4. Design matters – in product, communications, and everything else in this world.
5. Sell benefits, not features.
6. People are emotional buyers.
7. The more you know about your customer, the better.
8. Budget and resources matter.
9. There can be an extremely wide variance from industry to industry – the key is to look for parallels.
10. Humanize your company as much as possible – This is a great example.
11. You’re more likely to find success with talented people around you.
12. Be aware of the Pareto Principle (The 80/20 Rule) – 80% of results often come from 20% of customers.
13. Ads that annoy / shout about your product don’t work; Ads that tell customers useful information or help them in some way do.
14. There is such a thing as too many choices for the customer – it overwhelms them.
15. Practice brevity. Whatever you’ve got to say, do it in fewer words.

Agree? Disagree?