What is Marketing?

It’s my first blog, so it seems only fitting to start at the beginning. Although it seems a simple question – there are still some that ask me ‘What is marketing and what does it involve?’

I actually got asked the question this morning!

Marketing is the process of promoting and raising awareness of a product or service. If you want someone to buy your products, you need to market them. If you want people to know about you, you need to raise awareness and market your business. Otherwise how will anyone know what you are offering?

Marketing is such a broad term that over the years it has come to include so much. Its your website, your social media channels, your leaflets and merchandise, images, videos, events that you attend, emails that you send and even the way you present your business to the world.

What marketing should my business do?

The next big question that I get asked a lot. Marketing includes so much, so where do you start? To make sure you’re focussing on the right activity and not spreading yourself too thinly, you should have a marketing strategy. Even if its just a basic one. Ask yourself, what am I selling? What audience am I targeting? What messages does that audience want to hear? What personality do I want my business to have?

Let’s take a closer look as some of these questions that will make up your marketing planning.

Marketing your service or product

What you are trying to sell will determine who you are trying to target and what you say to them. Sounds simple right? But its what a lot of businesses get wrong straight away.

Let’s use an example so you can see what I mean.

You’re trying to sell a beauty product. You set yourself up on all the social media channels and get ready for those sales. But your posts aren’t getting much engagement and you don’t sell much. What’s gone wrong?

Maybe you’re on Linked In – posting pictures of your products but typically lots of users on that social media platform are looking to do business with other businesses and not on there to buy beauty products.

Maybe you’re on Facebook – but still no luck. Maybe your product is more appealing for teen girls who are all on Tik Tok and SnapChat.

I’m stereotyping and speaking in broad terms to show how what you are selling will determine how you select your audience and how you market yourself.

Who is my audience for marketing?

Better known as a target audience, this is a group of people you want to buy from you. You could have one main audience – that young girl who can afford your budget make up brand, or you could have several.

Let’s use another example to keep it relatable.

Imagine you are marketing a university course. You want people to come and study your course. You would target those 18-21 year olds that would study your course. You would research the social platforms they use and what messages they want to hear. But just as important would be the parents of those young people – as you know parents would have an influence in the decision making process. These two audiences would be on different social media channels and would be interested in very different messages. But you are trying to hit the same goal – selling your university course.

Which takes us to the next point – messaging.

What messages does your target audience want to hear?

To understand this, it is much easier to take a step back from your business and imagine yourself as that person. If that is going to be too hard for you – if you are a man for example and can’t really imagine yourself as a bride getting ready for her wedding day – think of a person that you know and imagine how they would act and feel. I like to even give my target audiences a name and personality (known as a buyer persona).

So let’s take our university student and their parent as our example.

The student may want to know how interesting the course will be, will they get to do lots of field trips, is the campus lively and even how cheap the beer is in the Students’ Union.

The parent won’t care about the price of beer. They want to know if the campus is safe, how much tuition fees are and if their child will get a good career afterwards.

Here we can see clearly how important it is to target our different audiences with the messages they want to hear. We’re selling the exact same service – but to two different audiences with different activity (we could target parents through Facebook and students through Tik Tok), with very different messages.

Why is my brand important?

Next we come to the most important point when first setting out your marketing plan. I kept it until last as didn’t want to start rambling on using jargon and marketing terms. But now that you understand what marketing is, we can talk about your brand.

Your brand is the way that your audience see you. It’s the colours that you use, the way that you talk, the images that you use. Think of your business as a person – give it a brand personality. Is it bold or shy, fun or professional, does it use formal language or talk in slang. Knowing your brand means when you write an email or choose an image for your website its so much easier. The way that you write and present yourself – is that how your brand would act?

Again let’s use some examples.

You’re a law firm, aiming to present yourself as professional, knowledgeable and upholding of the law. You would likely not write social posts using slang language, have a bright pink sign outside your office or choose to have fun images on your website. You may choose more traditional branding using corporate colours, use Linked In as your social media platform and attend professional events and talks – contributing as an expert.

Another example, you’re a hair salon, presenting yourself as creative, welcoming and targeting women. Now this time you may want that bright pink sign outside your shop. You would stay away from Linked In, but choose Instagram instead. You wouldn’t use corporate language, but talk in a warm way even using emojis 😊

Need help with a marketing plan?

My first blog – 1200 words just spilled out of me in just over 30 minutes. I love marketing, so when people ask for advice or ideas I get so excited. If you need any more info or would like a little bit of advice on your marketing – drop me an email.

Nat x