Everyone knows the term “marketing” and you also know that a successful company needs a proper marketing strategy. But what is marketing and what does this term mean? Of course, advertising is part of it, but ordering pens with your own logo or ordering TV ads randomly and without a plan will be expensive and possibly ineffective. Marketing is much more than just announcing your own logo to the world. Good marketing is, first and foremost, targeted and requires knowledge and experience.
First of all, very briefly: the term “marketing” describes a corporate area responsible for the following two main tasks:
1. Marketing your offering and publicizing your company (advertising, external representation, PR, etc.)
2. Setting up your company so that it can meet your customers' expectations (products, services, etc.)
So let's start with the first point of the definition of marketing, marketing, and advertising: without proper marketing efforts, awareness of your company cannot be increased, and if no one knows your company, the money will not flow.
"If you are going to put a dollar into your business, you must have another dollar to talk about it." (Henry Ford)
In addition to classic advertising measures such as posters and flyers that you launch to promote your products or services, the most important thing is to put one thing in the foreground: your “Unique Selling Proposition” (USP). You need to show what advantage your product or service offers your customers over your competitors.
What makes you unique? The best service? The cheapest price? If you are not different from your competitors, you will miss out on a lot of customers. But just knowing what your unique advantage is is not enough.
You also need to get the word out to the right people – your target audience. The target audience is the people in whom you see great potential for future purchases. This is where you should tell about your product (service) or company.
You can achieve this goal using a variety of approaches. In the good old offline world, you can primarily rely on print media, be it flyers, posters or advertising in relevant magazines and newspapers. Offline marketing includes:
- Leaflets and posters
- Advertising in newspapers, magazines, regional newsreels
- Business cards, gifts in the form of stickers (e.g. pens or magnets with your logo, etc.)
- Phone calls/attraction
- Bonus cards (e.g. in a cafe where the tenth coffee is free)
- Vouchers, coupons, discount campaigns, etc.
When it comes to offline marketing, there are many things to consider from a legal point of view, especially when it comes to purchasing products over the phone. Cold calling over the phone can be used in B2C, i.e. sales to end customers. However, in business-to-business (B2B) relationships, a cold call can be made over the phone, provided that the company being contacted is also supposedly interested in the offer of the calling party.
Overall, offline marketing offers many aspects, but it also comes with risks. These arise when you do not target your specific target group. For example, advertising in a local newspaper will do you little good if your target group does not read the local newspaper at all. In this case, you are spending a lot of money without any effect.
First of all, you need to plan which people you want to reach with your campaigns, as well as where and through which channels you will reach them. On the one hand, this helps you define your own target group, and on the other, it helps you develop your marketing strategy.
The impact of offline marketing is often difficult to measure. It is often difficult or impossible to document how many people saw your ad on a billboard. At best, you can find out how many people subsequently contacted you.
With online marketing, this is easier because you can measure many things, such as the number of visitors to your website. Online marketing campaigns are often cheaper than offline ones.
For example, a self-created email newsletter will not cost you anything - except a little time. Another advantage is the high reach that you can achieve, for example, via social networks such as Facebook.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) consists of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and SEA (Search Engine Advertising).
SEO in a nutshell: you want Google users to find your website in the so-called organic search for certain keywords (e.g. as a design agency for the search query: "Design a logo"). You often include the search query in the posts on your website to rank as high as possible in the search engines.
With SEA, you place paid ads on Google, Bing, etc., which are shown to the user above and below the search results.
Display advertising: For example, a banner ad that is shown to users on certain pages. Display advertising is also usually classified as search engine advertising, since companies usually place their ads on the search network and search engine partners through Google AdWords.
In addition to Google AdWords, you can use the BEILRY advertising service. The BEILRY advertising service is an online platform with cost per impression (CPM) where advertisers and webmasters (website owners) cooperate in an automated mode.
In the BEILRY advertising service, the advertiser sets a comfortable price for displaying an ad. This way, you can ensure that ads are displayed at an extremely low price.
Content marketing: With content marketing, you try to provide your target group with content that is interesting and relevant to them. This includes publishing content (blog text, videos, images, etc.) on your website or other platforms (blogs, Facebook, YouTube, etc.).
The “pull” principle applies here, as you essentially “lure” your target group to your website, convince them with interesting and useful content, position yourself as an expert in a certain field and ultimately gain new customers in the long term.
Email Marketing: With newsletter marketing, you try to specifically address your target group with newsletters. Newsletters are, among other things, very practical for creating a permanent point of contact with potential or existing customers and are therefore both an acquisition and loyalty tool for customers.
Social Media Marketing: An active presence on social media platforms such as Facebook or the career platform LinkedIn is now becoming increasingly relevant not only in B2C but also in B2B.
Let's move on to the second part of the definition of marketing to fully answer the question "What is marketing": the big challenge is to align your business with the needs of the market. Behind this, for example, is the growing demand from customers for existing or new products.
A simple example will clarify the situation: as a fruit seller, I must recognize in advance when the demand for exotic varieties such as carambola is particularly high. I can then react to this internally and increase the amount of such ("star") fruits in my purchases.
In the best case, I recognize this "shift in needs" in advance and prepare for this trend in advance. In this case, I make sure that enough fruit is delivered before the big rush and draw attention to it, for example by displaying it on the sidewalk. I can also think in advance about how I can use this opportunity to increase sales and, for example, plan a "take three, pay two" campaign.
Thus, your marketing strategy is constantly based on whether the needs of (potential) customers are changing. So it is not just advertising, it is also the beginning of internal changes that can affect all areas - from production to logistics.
In short, the following aspects ultimately fall under the scope of your marketing:
- Advertising your company.
- Marketing your products and services.
- Presentation of the "Unique Selling Proposition".
- Aligning the entire company with market needs: market analysis (recognizing current trends and changes in demand), internal restructuring and customer orientation.
Of course, all the points mentioned here represent only a part of the tasks that marketing ultimately poses to a company. From defining a target group to defining your own marketing goals and a single Facebook post, marketing covers an incredible number of aspects that often touch on many other areas of the company, such as sales or even logistics.
It is especially important that your own marketing is carried out carefully and based on the requirements of your company, as well as on overall corporate strategies and goals. By developing your own marketing tools, you can then plan and implement specific marketing strategies, define and achieve your own marketing goals and, ultimately, effectively reach your target group.
The tools just mentioned belong to the so-called four Ps of marketing, with which companies can develop their marketing strategies and translate them into concrete measures.
Product: With product policy, you devote yourself to all information that is directly related to your product or service.
Price: The pricing policy of marketing tools concerns everything that has to do with setting prices for your products and services.
Place: When dealing with distribution policy, you think about what is important for the distribution of your product or service, i.e. the path from your company to the buyer.
Promotion: The communication policy of marketing tools determines how you want to attract attention to yourself and your products/services, and primarily concerns the task of how you can attract potential customers.
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