Marketing is an essential part of any business, but what is marketing? Marketing is an umbrella term that encompasses a number of methods used to curate the image of your company in order to build awareness of, and respect for, your brand, all of which translate in a more productive and successful business. However, its many layers make marketing somewhat difficult to conceive of, let alone perform. Here is what you need to know in order to properly market your business to the public.
Hire a Professional Marketing Team
An in house marketing team will work for a small business, as anyone can come into a basic understanding of the tenets of marketing. “Any port in a storm,” as the saying goes, but marketing agencies offer a number of advantages over in house marketing teams. Marketing professionals are more qualified than your average employee, for starters, and an entire team of people with that advanced level of expertise speaks for itself. A team of professionals can provide you with a reliable and effective website marketing strategy, among other crucial services, while less experienced workers may provide fewer services that are much less valuable. The ability for individual members of a team to coordinate is also vital, and it’s a characteristic that marketing professionals are more inclined to possess.
Data Analysis Is Key
A team of experienced marketers alone a successful marketing venture does not make, because marketing requires data. Much of this data can come from external sources, such as demographics, but the metrics by which one judges the success or failure of the existing marketing campaign come from within your business. Therefore, you need to keep data on hand and in a comprehensible fashion. Metrics like your business’s overhead, income, and profit, all of which is crucial to your business as a whole, are all instrumental in determining the effectiveness of your marketing campaign. Other important data is the preferences of clients and customers. This can be attained via surveys, but it can often be directly observed in some cases. Whether a customer at a fast food restaurant prefers the restaurant’s atmosphere or the drive-thru is a seemingly innocuous data point that can actually translate into fine tuning a marketing strategy, so
don’t rule anything out.
Branding Is What Customers Remember
Branding is one of the many aspects of marketing, but it can be the single most important, as your branding is what will stick in the minds of customers. Branding, itself, is a multifaceted concept that entails a number of discrete factors. While a marketing agency will handle most of the heavy lifting, and they can certainly assist with branding, branding is akin to the personality of your company; therefore, it needs to come from a unique, human place. The most obvious and visible aspects of branding include things like your company’s name and iconography like the company’s color scheme and logo. For example, when you think of Coca Cola, you almost certainly conjure the image of the white, cursive logo on a red background before you imagine the dark brown, fizzy drink that the company sells. However, there is more to branding, and Coke can serve as the example once again. Coca Cola is famously associated with Christmas, because of their tradition of creating and airing elaborate and stunning Christmas themed ads during the holiday season. This is an example of the personality of the Coca Cola brand that has been curated over time using marketing, advertising in particular. The image of Santa Claus with a glass bottle of Coke is iconic, all because of some smart marketing.
Marketing is a complex concept, but it remains a crucial component of a lasting business. Marketing is the vehicle by which one arrives at a well known and cherished brand, and poor branding can have the opposite effect. Therefore, it’s important to master marketing, and mastery can sometimes be deferring to the judgement of others. With this guide in hand, you’ll be able to cement your company’s status as a cherished institution.
