What even is marketing?
Something that feels like it should be soooo obvious seems to also be so elusive. Even to me sometimes, as it’s easy to get lost in the day-to-day and forget to pull back and look at it from a business function and one of many facets to a successful business.
Marketing is the process of understanding your customers, what tickles them, what their frustrations are, and promoting products or services to meet those needs.
Marketing comes down to increasing your awareness and sales. It includes:
Marketing research
Branding
Advertising
Product development (although, ideally not alone!)
Pricing
Promotion
Distribution
What are the functions of marketing?
Creating awareness
Sparking interest in products or services
Educating and giving information
Facilitating purchase decisions
Relationship building (hey there, brand!)
Customer feedback (how else will we know marketing is working or not working? We pass this on so the product or service can be improved too)
Some similar and complementary functions that aren’t marketing but are often confused with marketing include:
Sales: sales is a one-to-one approach, a modern door knocking approach. It’s the sniper to marketing’s shotgun. Marketing can help build great sales tool but if you have a marketing professional on the phone to acquire your customers, you’re not using them to their max!
Communications: Marketing’s best friend! And the one we’re most likely to be comfortable being lumped in with. Communications is how you say something, marketing helps you figure out where to say it! The crossover is who you’re saying it to!
Need a hand with your marketing? We can dive right in with my free mini-audit or complete the contact form if you have something a little more specific in mind!
