The Importance of Marketing for Business
Is there really an importance of marketing in business or is it just something marketing companies say in order to get your business?
I know someone who has the best website ever, including videos, and even a book he wrote that’s for sale on his site. But he never makes a sale!
The fact is that no one even knows about his company or his book!
Are you one of those business owners who have invested in a great website, but no one comes to call? Do have a brick-and-mortar shop in the best part of town but there are never enough people who bother to walk in the door?
You have a quality product that others would want to buy. You know that people need your service.
“What’s wrong,” you might ask yourself. You might even blame your potential audience, in all their ignorance.
The Right Kind of Marketing
What’s missing is the right type of marketing for your particular activity and audience.
There’s more to marketing than offering products and services. You have to find leads from the sea of potential customers. There is actually a science and an art about this.
It’s important to drive people to your website. That’s not an easy thing to do! Then, you have to get them interested. Another challenging thing to make happen!
You have to nurture people and bring them from a point of mild interest to excitement and strong interest!
Marketing is very important for businesses, so let’s take a look at what marketing is and how to find leads.
What is Marketing?
When we talk about marketing, we aren’t referring to just sales even though sales is included in marketing.
So, what is marketing?
Marketing has to do with activities that a company does in order to promote the buying or selling of some product or service.
This includes such things as preparing campaigns, finding the right audiences, advertising, selling and even delivering products to both consumers and other businesses.
Without the marketing of one’s products or services, a business is not discoverable by potential clients or consumers.
Don’t underestimate the importance of marketing plan.
At one time, promotion was mainly done by word of mouth and by door-to-door salesmen. Do you remember those days?
Then came fliers delivered through the mail, which we still get today. There was (and still is) also radio and TV advertising.
This was the sales department of a company. The marketing division of the company was separate to that.
Today, marketing has incorporated sales into its activities and has become the single most important factor for expanding a business.
It not only carries out the function of making sales but includes plans for promotion, what audiences to address, how to find leads, where to promote and how.
Expanding the business is another aspect of marketing.
And with a marketing plan, you have to have a marketing strategy. You cannot underestimate the importance of marketing strategy. If you don’t know HOW you’re going to find more leads, you will spin your wheels like most companies. The time and money wasted by businesses in planning without a sound strategy is staggering.
So, let’s look at the importance of marketing in business and how you can use it to increase your business.
Four Important Facts to Know About Marketing Today
1. Marketing attracts attention from potential customers.
No one will know a company exists unless their attention is attracted to it.
Have you ever watched an ad on TV that was so unusual or exciting that your attention was drawn to it? It probably stuck in your mind for some time after. Your attention was definitely attracted to that ad.
Ads on Facebook; listings on Google; posts on other websites, blogs, newsletters, etc; sending out fliers; and even televised ads are examples of attracting attention. This is the promotion that marketing does.
However you promote your product, the key result is that the potential customers are looking your way and observing your product or service and checking it out to see if it will handle some difficulty in their lives.
Once attention is captured, the next action is to get those potential buyers interested in the product or service enough to consider purchasing it.
The important factor is that the person actually has to need or want what you have to sell them. He or she won’t even be curious about the product or service unless it is something that he/she needs or wants. It has to handle some problem in his or her life.
HOW TO FIND LEADS—What you can do:
List out what problems or life difficulties your product or service is designed to handle. Use it in your marketing.
2. Marketing educates others on the aspects of the product or service, especially on what sets them apart quality-wise from other competitors. Even more important is making it clear how the potential buyer will benefit from it.
A key factor of marketing is to educate others about the product or service. It’s vitally important to make everything clear. Never assume something is obvious or everybody know certain things. Even if they know something, shining light on it verifies and validates the fact.
When folks look online or in stores for a product or service, they usually have some problem they need to solve. They hope to find something they can use to handle that difficulty.
So education about the product or service needs to address how it can solve the problem at hand. It needs to convince the consumer that the product is exactly what they are looking for, and that it may be superior to other products of the same nature.
A person is more likely to purchase something when they feel it will make their life better by dealing with some challenge they are faced with. That is the importance of marketing.
HOW TO FIND LEADS—What you can do:
Do some research to find out what issues people have that your product can solve. Discussion groups on Facebook is one place to research.
Go to groups that would be in the market for your product. If you have a garden product for example, you could go to horticulture or gardening groups and read the posts. People often ask for advice on problems they have.
3. Marketing generates sales and grows the business.
A business will not grow or even succeed if it doesn’t make money by sales. After all, money is needed to operate a company.
And even though making sales is the end result of marketing, it is better to show the potential customers how the product can fix or fulfill some aspect of their lives than to outright jump into the sales jargon.
As more and more people become attracted to your business and its products or services, your business grows, and marketing will need to come up with new campaigns, advertisements, avenues and ways to increase sales. You need to figure out new ways of how to find leads.
Marketing should include an investigation of what improved the sales and then strengthen those successful behaviors and actions.
It’s important to come up with more modern approaches to catch the attention of today’s audiences.
It should also research who your different audiences are so campaigns can be addressed to those people specifically.
Even after the customer has purchased a product or signed up for some service, a business needs to continue to be in their minds for future sales. In other words, you want them to think of you when they want something else that you offer instead of going to one of your competitors.
Loyalty is a Dangerous Presumption
It is an error to believe that a customer or client will always buy from you or use your service. With all the competition around, they could easily have their attention go to some other company. Especially when someone else did a better job at convincing your audience that they have a better solution for them.
Therefore, keep them engaged by regular social media posting and sending promotion for future sales or new products.
You might even have a blog or newsletter that gets them involved in some related community endeavor. Getting them involved also makes them feel important. Invite them to follow you on LinkedIn, Facebook or other social media.
Also, when they share how a product helped them, there will be more sales for your company. Testimonials are the best convincers.
HOW TO FIND LEADS—What you can do:
Once you are making sales, find out who the customers are, whether male or female, what they are interested in and what difficulties they are trying to handle. You can find this out by sending them a survey to collect answers for better marketing.
Good marketing develops a trustworthy reputation.
Satisfied customers can give a company success stories that help to build your business. You can use this in marketing when you plan new campaigns and advertising.
By using the testimonials from past buyers in campaigns, a business shows others that it has a good reputation and reliable products or services. This is a strong factor in convincing new customers to make a purchase.
Sometimes a customer is not happy with the product or service. That happens at times. How you handle the complaint will determine whether that complaint will harm or help your reputation. The end result that you would need to go for here is a happy customer.
If something arrived damaged in the mail, send another one. If the customer doesn’t like the product, offer another option or even a refund.
When people see you’ve made good on your end, a complaint becomes living testimony of your integrity, and trust in you will increase.
The amount of time and money spent on handling a disgruntled customer is worth it and may result in even bigger sales. Count it as advertising costs because it builds your reputation in showing your reliability. It shows that you care.
In other words, marketing consists of research, promotion, selling, and distribution of your products and/or services.
Without realizing the importance of marketing for business, the company cannot survive. But with good marketing plans, your business can grow and prosper by getting new customers and establishing a working relationship with past customers.
HOW TO FIND LEADS—What you can do:
Collect testimonials from your buyers and get okay to use them in your promotional pieces, points and on your website.
In summary, by following the above four points, you will find your sales improving and your business growing. You will experience the importance of marketing in business.
You will attract attention to your products or services and get buyers.