Marketers should be dumber than customer

While writing my previous post about programmers being lazy and dumb I realized that marketer needs to be dumber than customer.

Recently while designing a mortgage calculator I learned a good lesson as a marketer. Our initial calculator had money in hand, rate, principle amount e.t.c, the very best calculator with print option, syndication features, export and almost the best in the industry. One of our own member who was going through mortgage found another calculator simpler as it asked few questions like “how much money do you need?”, “how much money do you have now?” e.t.c. He could fill it up and get the desired result. The simple calculator he used did not had print option or smart and intelligent calculations, it was dumb and offered the simplicity.

I think one of the ability a marketer should have is to think like a customer, really dumb customer (do read my experiences about blood test and Internet browser with customers).  We will be requiring some 5 to 10 marketers in next month and I think I am going to design a paper to test their ability to think as a dumber. I am seriously going to work with our HR on this test before I go for next campus recruitment.

I want to repeat what I learned as a good lesson.

“Never underestimate the ingenuity of stupidity”

Share your thoughts