A lot of people don’t understand what marketing is and therefore they believe a lot of myths about marketing. Let’s take a look at the definition and purpose of marketing:
What Is Marketing?
Marketing refers to any actions a company takes to attract an audience to the company's product or services through high-quality messaging. Marketing aims to deliver standalone value for prospects and consumers through content, with the long-term goal of demonstrating product value, strengthening brand loyalty, and ultimately increasing sales.[1]
Purpose of Marketing:
Marketing is the process of getting people interested in your company's product or service. This happens through market research, analysis, and understanding your ideal customer's interests. Marketing pertains to all aspects of a business, including product development, distribution methods, sales, and advertising.[1]
As we can see from the definition above, “Marketing refers to any actions a company takes to attract an audience to the company's product or services through high-quality messaging.” Therefore, everything you do to promote your business is marketing, this includes your:
- Brand (Company Name, Logo, Colour Scheme, Tag Line, Custom Packaging and more) Read our What is Brand Development blog post for more details on branding.
- Website
- Signage
- Advertisements (Print, Radio, Digital)
- Social Media
- Press Releases
- Blogs
- And so much more!
Marketing is necessary no matter the type of business you have, or your ideal clients. It is always best to work with a professional marketer to ensure your marketing is efficient and effective. Bad marketing can cost you a lot more than hiring a marketing professional, in fact, it may cost you your entire business. Please do not be fooled by these marketing myths:
- Marketing is easy and can be done by anyone.
- Marketing just like any other skill or profession requires training and practice. Expecting to get positive results without a professional is unrealistic. It takes a lot of time and experience to know how to market various businesses based on a number of factors including type of business, goals, location, price, and more.
- Posting on your business social media page with no plan or consistency is not a marketing plan and will not yield the results that you can achieve by working with a professional. With marketing and business, QUALITY is the focus! If you don’t market your business, or cut costs by not using a professional, you may save money, but you’ll often pay for your savings through lowered sales.
- Great marketing should provide you with great results quickly. We will get new clients as soon as we launch our marketing campaign.
- Marketing takes time to see results. Just as you don’t lose weight overnight, it takes time for your marketing to show results. Many people expect to get their desired results overnight, but that simply isn’t possible. In many cases, people have to hear about your product/service at least three times before they may even research your business. You may also find that people are interested in all that you have to offer, but are not able to take advantage of it until a later time, due to their workload, budget, etc.. Just because they didn’t sign up immediately, doesn’t mean that they will never become a client…it just takes time.
- Your product/service will sell itself.
- No one can spend money with your business if they do not know about it. An amazing product/service does not exempt you from marketing. In fact, think about how many AMAZING businesses have been shut down due to reduced sales in the past 5 years – now think about how many of them were not advertising their businesses.
- All of your marketing should focus on your business.
- Your business is supposed to exist to solve a problem for potential clients – so your marketing has to focus not just on your business, but also on the potential clients, and the problems that you can help them solve. People are often turned off by ego-centric marketing. Instead of overselling yourself or your business, focus on selling the solution you provide to problems your ideal clients are having.
- __________ works for XYZ company, so let’s just copy their marketing.
- What works for someone else, may not work for you and your business! Let’s say you run a service-based business, and your main competitor who is a local celebrity uses a lot of videos featuring them (the celebrity), sharing tips and tricks. Your competition is using their celebrity status to help gain attention for their business, if you did the same thing, it would not yield the same results for your business.
It is more important to be authentic in who you are as a business and having a professional take care of your marketing than to try to copy and paste someone else’s marketing efforts. Your clients and followers can tell when you are trying to be someone you are not.
There are so many misconceptions about marketing and business, so start with speaking to a professional. Remember there are a lot of firms available, but make sure you find the one that works best for you and your business. If you are interested in working with NAYA, feel free to give us a call to schedule a consultation. We look forward to helping you life #LifeByDesign.
[1] Caroline Forsey, HubSpot - https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/what-is-marketing(Feb 25, 2021)