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Marketing Basics
by Rudolf Friedrich
The ultimate goal of marketing is to make money for a business. Lets face it, in order to make money, you gotta get customers which are in need of the services You offer. They have to know that You have exactly what they need. Like many other things, marketing is somewhat like an iceberg. It is everything that you do to reach and persuade prospects. Basically, you might look at marketing as the wide range of activities involved in making sure that you're continuing to meet the needs of your customers and are getting appropriate value in return.
Besides the details you gain from analytics, the real test of marketing is very straightforward. It is more than advertising or selling. Marketing can actually be a public good when it focuses on best interests of those we serve, which is really what marketing is all about anyway.
Marketing is often mistakenly identified with selling and promotion. Good marketing is a conversation, and that's much less slimy than a soliloquy. As consumers' needs and wants become more sophisticated, the level of communication must follow. As a means of communication and marketing, the web is unparalleled.
Contemporary management practice suggests very strongly that marketing is an essential component of any organizational business plan. Therefore a sound marketing plan is key to the success of your business. It should include your market your market research, your location, the customer group you have targeted, your competition, positioning, the product or service you are selling, pricing, advertising and promotion.
The first key to marketing is to clearly define what you do. Remember that marketing is an investment in your business. Before you start you should collect all the necessary information, then it is time to put your plan down on paper. It should accomplish the following:
1. Define your business 2. Define your customers 3. Define your plan and budget
The essential idea is targeted marketing, making sure your message reaches the people you want to persuade. Today's marketplace is too fragmented and diffused to reach everyone without the expenditure of vast sums of money. This makes the formulation of a specific customer profile all the more important.
Above all, be prepared to change to solve what customers identify as problems.
Success in business, as in life, is based on the relationships you have with people. Marketers must aggressively build relationships with consumers, customers, distributors, partners and even competitors if they want to have success in today's competitive marketplace. There are a lot ways to do that, like:
Internet marketing is the use of the Internet to advertise and sell goods and services.
Web marketing is intended to drive traffic to your website through various means such as Search Engine Optimization, AdWords pay-per-click strategies, etc.
Email marketing is, as the name suggests, the use of email in marketing communications. Email marketing is the most cost effective medium to test your offer, track results and evaluate response rates.
Viral marketing is more powerful than third-party advertising because it conveys an implied endorsement from a friend.
Keyword marketing is much more powerful compared to the offline marketing techniques, simply because it is the customer's actions that set off the spiral.
Guerrilla Marketing is a less then honest form of online marketing.
Open source marketing is the future.
The science of marketing on the internet has developed in leaps and bounds and search engine marketing is at the leading edge.
Offer an affiliate program at your website.
OK, some may say this is not an absolute necessity, but look around. Nearly ALL successful e-commerce sites offer some form of affiliate program. You can pay for visitors, leads or commission sales, but you need to offer SOME way of rewarding folks who bring you business. The very first quality one must possess if he wants to try his hand in affiliate marketing is the willingness to learn and be trained. Although the concept of affiliate programs is relatively new it is set to revolutionise the way marketing is done online.
Marketing analysis
You need to know your market, customer needs, where they are, how to reach them, etc. This is a very wide range what you can do and is basically dependent on your budget. For one thing, providing customers with real solutions requires a good deal of research and insight. Marketing analysis includes finding out what groups of potential customers exist, what is your target market you prefer to serve, what their needs are, what services you might develop to meet their needs and what your competitors are doing, what pricing you should use and how you should distribute your services to your target markets. Various methods of market research are used to find out information about markets, target markets and their needs, competitors, etc. When you start your business you want to know if there is a sufficient market to support your business. You don't need to do major market research for this initial market analysis. All you want at this stage is to get a good guess about how many potential customers you might have. In short, you want to have a reality check, a quick break-even analysis that ties your initial business numbers to your required sales. How many customers you need to reach the break-even point. At this point, especially for potential start-ups, a moment of reflection is crucial. How does your business look from this viewpoint? Does it make sense? Can you make the sales you need to break even? Is the market big enough? Many people dream of starting a business, but that dream turns into a nightmare if the new business isn't successful. If you think you can make your break-even numbers work and you believe you have enough customers to make it, then go on to develop a business plan. If not, either do more research and revise the idea, or give up and try something else.
Rudolf Friedrich has an university degree in information science and worked in this industry for different companies and in different countries, including the Soviet Union, until 1990. Since then he works as a self employed business consultant and coach. He embraces the servant leadership philosophy and serves as a catalyst for free enterprise, small business and economic development. Rudolf works with growth–oriented companies in technology, manufacturing, entertainment and food industries. His lastest effort have been towards helping others develop a financially viable consulting business. To learn more go to his website: http://www.developeaconsultingbusiness.com
Contact the author, Rudolf Friedrich
, at info@developaconsultingbusiness.com
.