What is marketing?

Well, marketing is probably the most – in fact it is the most important thing – of any business. What’s the point of having a product that can change a person’s life, if those people never heard of it and know nothing about it? This is where all talented marketers come into play.

Why is marketing important?

Marketing is a vital aspect of business success because of its paramount role in connecting a brand with consumers. This connection with customers allows a company or business to grow its brand, increase its sales and consequently its revenue.

4 rules of marketing

The Four Principles are a traditional descriptive model used to inform areas of marketing strategy. The four principles of marketing, sometimes called the marketing mix – product, price, place and promotion – are essential part of any good marketing strategy.

1. Product

Product is a good or service which is being sold to the customers by some company, good product should fulfil the requirement of any customer and at the same time it must be capable of meeting the demand of any customer.

2. Price

Price, after all, can determine whether or not someone will buy your product or buy that of your competitor.

3. Place

With the increased number of digital and physical product offerings, it’s really important for the marketer to consider the tools of the products’ marketing; would people buy a certain product online or in a store environment? Should you produce something for sale overseas? In which geographies should you sell products? Are you likely to potentially hurt your marketing performance based on the ‘where’ you’re marketing? Marketing teams must be very cognizant of where they are marketing, and truly identifying the best geographic distribution for optimal marketing performance.

4. Promotion

What would there be for all the people in the marketing department to do if no one was excited or even apprehensive about the product? Promotion refers to promotional activity around the product, including advertising, promotional strategy and public relations. ‘Should we make an ad?’ ‘Should we sponsor the podcast?’ ‘Should we just run a Google Adwords campaign?’ With a little help from market research, CMOs should know when to drive at whom and how.

How marketing benefits businesses

An experiment involving 930 startups showed that, relative to the control group, those businesses that used volunteer marketers increased their monthly sales by 51.7 per cent on average, their monthly profits by 35.8 per cent, total assets by 31.0 per cent, and the number of paid employees by 23.8 per cent.

That’s a huge boost for these emerging businesses.

Marketing as a whole is an important tool to assist in growing a business and getting the message out about your product for any entrepreneur or small company. This is also true for big brands and already established markets, but they must continually engage with the consumer as to whether their product is still needed or not.

Marketing is essential to finding new audiences online

Digital content marketing can have a vital role in helping companies adapt and obtain new audiences in this new world – for one in three consumers now uses social media to find new products and services. The need for any startup to exploit new audiences means a minimum of digital marketing must be in place in addition to traditional marketing channels.

Perhaps foremost, content marketing is a common means of finding new customers. One recent study found that 72 per cent of companies claim marketing with content increases leads. In addition, a survey conducted by the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) states that 91 per cent of Business to Business (B2B) marketers use marketing with content to reach new customers, and 84 per cent of business decision-makers believe content marketing plays a key role in helping a company grow an audience.

Advertising campaigns sell more products

Whether it’s online via email and social media or offline via television and print, studies have proven that putting a marketing campaign in place and using advertising to heighten awareness of a brand will continue to result in higher sales.

According to some research coming out of France, the return on investment (ROI) on a TV advertising campaign – €4.9 in product sales for every €1 invested – is much higher than on website traffic: up to +61 per cent on average for brands during TV ad campaigns. For every dollar a brand spends on email marketing, conversely, they receive a $42 ROI in sales increases.

Once a brand and a product is exposed in a media campaign, it will familiarise to the customers which will build up loyalty and trust, with increase in recognition and sales.

After following a brand in social media, 91 per cent of followers go on to visit the brand’s website or app, and 89 per cent will then purchase a product through the brand. This shows just how integral marketing can be to ushering a potential customer to the product.