What Does Marketing Your Business Mean?

Marketing your product or service is one of the most crucial components of a business.

According to Management guru, Peter Drucker, the purpose of a business enterprise is to create a customer, which has to be done by marketing and innovation. Marketing in its fullest form is the most important tool to enhance any business today.  With the world being inundated with new innovations and technology, businesses need to generate revenue and profit from these new renderings.

And according to Forbes, “Marketing is about connecting the right customers to the right product.”

So, What Is Marketing?

Marketing involves all the actions a business undertakes to draw in customers and maintain relationships with them. It is the management process through which goods and services move from concept to the customer. Marketing includes advertising, selling, and delivering products to consumers or other businesses.

Marketing can be divided into various subtypes; however, all subtypes can be grouped into two basic forms of marketing.

• Outbound Marketing
• Inbound Marketing

The basic difference between these two forms of marketing is the cultural shift in the entire concept of how marketing works.

Outbound Marketing

Outbound marketing consists of all the traditional forms. It consists of:

• TV and radio ads
• Telemarketing
• Banner and display ads
• Billboards
• Newspaper and magazine ads
• Cold calling
• Pop-ups and pop-unders, and
• Contextual ads 

Outbound marketing, on the other hand, is pushy and interruptive. It forces itself on people, shoves things to the faces of the audience, whether or not they want it. Needless to say, the introduction of ad blockers and oversaturation, in general, has made outbound marketing fall a bit out of favor.

Another problem with outbound marketing is that many people who are not in your target audience see your message, which makes the cost of advertising on these mediums less effective.

Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing is a relatively new concept. It refers to marketing strategies that focus on pulling audiences in instead of going out to get prospects’ attention. Content is the biggest factor here, so you may hear the term content marketing. It involves creating blog posts, social media, infographics, white papers, email newsletters, and other content that people actually want to read or engage in. 

Search engine optimization helps people find marketer’s content. If it’s compelling enough, it will lead people to engage with them and interact, read and share, get a positive impression of the brand, and eventually lead to a purchase.

Inbound marketing is indirect and uninterrupted: there’s never a noticeable sales pitch. Inbound marketing tactfully nudges customers down the sales funnel by increasing their engagement with the brand.

In the modern business world, Inbound marketing is the most effective form of marketing.

Why Is Marketing Your Business Important?

Marketing not only determines consumer need, it also helps create consumer need. Only through marketing can you gain potential customers and create awareness of your brand.

Here are a few benefits of marketing:

It Enhances Sales

First and foremost, by no means should you confuse marketing with sales. These two aspects are complementary to each other, but not identical. Strategic marketing enhances sales. Through sound marketing plans, awareness of your products and services become a reality. As you gain customers and build rapport, the word will spread faster, leading to more new customers. Then the sales will increase.

Marketing Your Business Enhances Reputation

Do you prefer Gmail services over any other email service? Why? 

The reputation of a company’s brand determines the success of the business. Marketing builds the recognition of a brand name or a product for a company. When a company matches up with the high expectations of the public, its reputation increases, the business expands, and sales increase. You build the reputation of your company’s brand through effective communication and quality products or services. Use strategic marketing plans to accomplish this.

Marketing Enhances Rollout

The growth in the reputation of your business through sound marketing prepares you for the next steps. It creates the necessary field of communications: target audiences and markets. By getting the word out through marketing, you can share your business offerings with your potential customers, giving your business the opportunity to progress and succeed.

The Bottom Line About Marketing Your Business

Now you know some general facts about marketing and how can it help your business; however, marketing only yields its benefits when it is done in the most strategic and effective manner. Advertising your business alone is not marketing. It involves a lot of factors to create a sound strategic marketing plan for a business. You need to have the right factors and the right skills which work for your business.

Head to the next post to learn more.