Most of us trip on the thought that marketing is all about getting our products sold. Is it really just about getting people to come and buy our products?
Let’s get through the basic meaning of marketing first shall we?
Marketing is at every stage of a business. It shelters all the activities that aim to ultimately provide value to the customer for what they are paying.
Marketing starts from research, which includes surveys, and analysis from the base level. Why?
You have a product, but you need to know who it is useful for, which age group or which category of people would actually want to buy it. What are the trends in the market and what are public preferences? All that you can identify from market research and analysis.That’s all about figuring out your target audience and what interests them.
This helps you build a promoting and advertising plan. Since you know what your audience is looking for, you will know how to showcase your product in such a way that the audience realizes how your product or service can provide value to them.
Now the promotion or advertising plan is mainly about what channels drive more audience. In the sense, which types of promotion engage more audience. For example, there are billboards, magazines, newspapers, google ads, facebook ads, twitter, and many more options. In today’s generation, people look down at their phones more than billboards up outside the window.
And so, social media marketing has now become the top most marketing platform.
Once you start attracting an audience you will be driving sales for your products or services. But here’s the twist! Just because your sales have begun doesn’t mean the marketing role is over!
Now is the time to follow up. The people who buy your product or service, if you gain their trust in your brand, you will earn their loyalty right? This way, you aren’t just getting temporary or short term profits at the moment, you are also earning a long term customer base for your brand! So if in case a customer has any issues with the product, the marketing team also provides “after sales services”
In the end, marketing is not just about sales. Sales is just about getting money on your product or service, which may be just a part of marketing. But marketing is from the start of a product till the end, where it reaches the customer, and even after that. So while Sales is just about selling your product and earning on it, Marketing is all about the customer, and the value we provide to the customer, and how we win loyalty and long term business with it.