Marketing is a multi-tiered effort, and it can be daunting when you’re unfamiliar with the basics. Never fear, we’re here to help. We’ve broken down some of the important marketing pieces and made them easy to understand. So, if you need a crash course in marketing basics, then you’ve come to the right place. Please read on!
What Is Marketing
The American Marketing Association defines marketing as “the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large”.
Essentially, marketing is how a brand, whether it’s an individual or a company, connects with and sells to the end-user. In this instance, sells is a multi-faceted word. It could be a product, an idea, a service, or anything of value imparted from the giver to the receiver.
Marketing, as a verb, is done through a variety of ways and across multiple channels. The intent is to use a strategic marketing plan to drive the customer into action.
The 4 Ps of Marketing Basics
There are four primary components of marketing called the 4 Ps.
While your marketing strategy, along with variables within that strategy may change, these four principles will always remain the same.
- Product: The goods or services your company is selling.
- Price: The cost of your goods or service.
- Place: Where your goods or service can be found, whether online or in a store.
- Promotion: How the news of your product or service is going to be effectively distributed.
Key Elements Of A Marketing Strategy
There are many different pieces that come together to make a complete marketing strategy. Not all of these will be right for every brand.
- Content: Content marketing helps break down a problem your potential client is having and shows them how to work toward a solution. It aids in growing your audience while establishing authority in your industry. If done compellingly, it will lead to sales.
- Social media: Social media marketing will build brand awareness. It will enable you to find an audience where you wouldn’t otherwise find one. Meaning, new eyeballs on your product or service.
- Email: Email marketing is one of the most cost-effective marketing pieces. You’re delivering your vital information directly into your audience’s inbox. There’s no better real estate than that.
- Video: Video has become the most consumed form of content. YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine next to Google. Having a video marketing strategy is becoming increasingly more important.
- SEO: Using relevant keywords will increase your chances of being found in your target users’ search. In fact, when done right, SEO is the driving force behind website traffic.
- Paid ads: With ads/PPC, you’re seen at the top of the search engine results. When a user is searching for the type of product or service you offer, you’re now in a better position to sell them what they’re looking for.
- Influencer: What’s a better sales tactic than having a popular personality promote your product? Influencer marketing allows you to leverage your influencer’s audience, getting your service or product in front of more potential users.
- Public Relations (PR): Public relations is a more traditional form of marketing. PR is about positive perception through relationship building.
Also read: What Is TikTok And How Can Brands Use It?
How To Create A Marketing Strategy
A strategy is important to marketing success. It’s the roadmap that guides your direction and helps you to obtain your goals.
- First, you need to determine who your audience is.
- Next, you’ll have to decide your call-to-action (CTA) for each step of your strategy.
- Then, you’ll need to understand where in the marketing funnel they are:
- Top of the funnel is when the potential customer has no idea who you are.
- Middle of the funnel means the customer is searching for a product that you have.
- Bottom of the funnel means the customer has the money and is ready to make a purchase.
- How are you going to hit your goal? This is where you’re going to determine which of the above elements of marketing are the right ones for you.
- Recognizing Your Audience
- Who is the perfect customer/client?
- Which platforms are they on?
- How are you reaching them?
- What are you going to do in order to be found easily?
Figuring out the “who” will help you determine the “how”. If that sounds confusing, please feel free to reach out to Adapt Studios. We’re happy to help!
Also read: How To Write A Blog Post Built To Convert
Marketing Tools You’ll Need
To aid you in both your marketing strategy and execution, you’ll need some handy dandy tools to keep you on track.
- Social platform scheduling: Look at Hootsuite, it is very user friendly and allows you to schedule posts on most social networks. Facebook has one built into the platform, and Twitter is introducing a native scheduler, as well.
- Project management: Trello, Asana, Monday, Airtable and so much more are available. It just depends on your specific needs.
- Editorial Calendars: You can make one using a Google sheet, or use the project management tool with editorial calendar capabilities like Monday.
- Email: We love Mailchimp, but Hubspot has a nice email campaign platform, as does Constant Contact.
- SEO: There are so many different tools available for this. We like Answer the Public, Google’s Search Console, and Moz.
You may go through a bunch of different tools until you find the ones that work best for you and your team.
Also read: Humanizing Your Brand
There are so many things to keep track of and understand when initiating your marketing strategy. You’ll constantly learn and refine, which is perfectly normal, you’re just starting with marketing basics.
Always remember, there’s no perfect way, so stay positive and keep on marketing!
More resources:
https://sproutsocial.com/insights/guides/small-business-marketing-101/
https://www.thebalancesmb.com/step-by-step-guide-to-the-fundamentals-of-marketing-2295834