In a post from last week, I mentioned (almost as an aside) that marketers have to own the “What The Customer Wants” piece if they want any authority. This was a rather loose end that needed tying. I can think of three other subjects that a marketer ought to know cold, if they expect to have a say in corporate strategy.

Any marketer responsible for strategy should be talking to customers regularly. See our article on interviewing customers for the primary reasons why you should. We can think of nine “secondary reasons” why customer interviews are useful. These are in no particular order, since their net benefit depends on your own situation. Let’s call one of your customers Joe.