Marketing is this fairly weird mechanism that is rather hard to control and where a well placed £100 can do much more than a poorly placed £10,000, it is a very creative endeavour which requires skill, practice and some good ideas.
This article is only a rough guide for more detailed descriptions visit individual articles on the topic you're interested in.
A popular misconception about marketing is that it is only advertising, whereas marketing is actually so much more than just advertising as it involves everything the customer has contact with. But just before you get your hands dirty, you will need to do some research.
And of course, I’m talking about finding your target audience these are the people who you expect to buy your product. Why do you need this information well it just makes life so much easier as you will now know who to target with your marketing so that you can achieve greater results with a much smaller budget. To find your target market you should imagine your stereotypical customer, of course, you may want to update the characteristics later after you start selling but the closer you get to the perfect customer the more you will earn.
To help you with this task here are some things you may want to consider:
How wealthy are your customers
In which areas do they live
How old are they
What is their gender
Why did they buy your product was its price, quality or convenience.
These are just some of the questions you may use to identify your target market, of course, the questions and their importance will vary from business to business as a small corner shop will care about the location most, and a big supermarket will care about the car ownership of people in the specific region in which they set up so you have to decide what are the most important factors for your business and on their basis create your ideal customer. Don't believe in targeting then think again because its basically the only service that google, Facebook and other social media giants provide to companies better-targeted ads, why do all companies gather tones of data about each user: to better target ads and personalise the experience they all spend millions on big data so just take them as an example because it pays.
Let's throw in a bit of jargon you may have heard of the 4p’s of marketing if you did any business course you most likely will have. So what are they, they are an acronym which stands for Product, Price, Place and Promotion. And they are extremely helpful in remembering that there is a lot more to marketing than just advertising.
So, let's start with product, this is the actual product or service that you will be selling but this also contains everything that is around the product such as packaging or customer service. This encompasses how you present the product does it look appealing at the point of purchase is the customer going to pick up your product or will the purchase the competing product. What you have to do is ensure that your product looks as good as possible, people do judge the book by its cover so you have to spend a lot of time and effort to figure out how you are going to present your product to make it as appealing to your potential customers as possible. But that's not everything because once your customer has bought your product once you want them to come back again and by your product as often as possible, you want them to be satisfied so they tell their friends about your wonderful product and if you want that to happen you have to have a good product. You want your product to be at least as good as your packaging or your product will get not recommended to others and people might not buy it again making your business short-lived.
Going further, price this is the actual price that customers will have to pay and most people don’t realize that it plays a big part in marketing as well as sales. The pricing strategy that you will choose will greatly impact your marketing. Cheap products are marketed differently to expensive products. For example, if you have a cheap product you will probably market is based on its features and the low price but if it is a premium expensive product you will more likely market is based on how exclusive or how its use will make the owner feel. Look at cars, for example, the cheap ones are marketed on price and some features and usually present the most common users in the ads in this example it usually is a family of three or four. But compare it to sports cars usually bright red and flashy with a single young person behind the wheel usually looking very successful. That's the difference in marketing based on price. the first one sells practicality, affordability and some features like safety and security whereas the second one sells the emotion, prestige and it plays on peoples desire to look wealthy and successful.
Place this is where your product will be sold you have to make sure that it reflects your product so that it doesn't put people off. You wouldn’t sell exclusive jewellery in a poor part of town, you have to make sure that wherever you will be selling is convenient for your customers to go to. Another common mistake is that the place where its sold does not reflect the product your customers must feel comfortable going to wherever you are selling your products. it must reflect their day to day reality so that they feel at home in your store and will spend the time there necessary to buy the product. All of this also applies to your website it must be inviting and interesting enough so that your customers do not run away the minute they see it. Basically the more accessible, convenient and easy to find for your customers the better.
And finally promotion this is what most people call marketing and they would still get it wrong because what they mean is advertising and advertising is not the same as promotion. Many businesses get this wrong and they get stuck thinking that the only way to promote their business is through advertising but that is wrong. Advertising is only a small part of promotion, promotion encompasses all business activities you can do in order to get peoples attention, for example, social media, sponsorships or even doing something outrageous to get your business into mainstream media. To fulfil this part you have to get creative anything that gets peoples attention works. There are so many different techniques that I can't put them in here and you'll just have to find them in the blog more are published regularly.
If you live in this world you have definitely heard of branding. It makes your company easily recognisable from all others operating in the same industry. Although it’s simple it works wonders, it’s the sole reason why Apple can charge so much for their phones. Branding gives people something to follow, like and affiliate with, it will help you build a community of enthusiasts who will literally buy anything you produce don’t believe me look at apple if someone has one apple thing you can safely bet all their stuff is from apple.
Again this is only a very short overview if you want to learn more about branding go visit our dedicated post or watch our video. but in short, what you have to do is
Make it unique you most definitely have one aspect of your product that is better than your competitors be it price, the way it looks or the specs. Find that thing and focus on it, market on that specific characteristic because, you are the best at it so why not use it to your advantage. Also, you want your marketing to represent your business and only your business so copying the marketing strategy of any other business especially in your market can be disastrous as you marketing will then not be unique to you and people will not be able to associate you with it as well as if you did not copy your opponents so it's just not worth it even if it may seem like a good idea to do the same things that big players do remember you are not a big player and your company is not the same so don't make your marketing the same. If anything all you may want to do is look at how the big players used to promote themselves when they ware still small and take inspiration but do not copy them that will not work you have to be original.
And lastly make it creative what works for one person might not work for another. Remember not every product and service is the same, a publisher will market differently from a plumber. Leverage whatever resources you have as it’s not the amount of resources that make you win it’s what you do with those resources. You will not fail because you don’t have the resources only the lack of resourcefulness can stifle you.
And on that note let us conclude today's article leave us a like if you enjoyed it and visit our, marketing category for more content about well marketing. If you have any questions drop them in the comments bellow and I will answer them. For our services visit our website and just now farewell.
This article is only an overview you can find more detailed explanations and step by step guides in our blog.
