For many, marketing is an synonym for spam. Those rude cold calls that interrupt you while you’re in a meeting, driving your way home, or even enjoying a movie in your free time. They happen at any time and at any moment, and they’re not fun experiences because you’re not really interested in what they’re offering.
This phenomena has a name, it’s called: cold calling. It’s part of a greater marketing school called “outbound marketing“, it’s outbound because in it companies are chasing the customer.
There is another school of marketing which is called “inbound marketing“, this is the marketing we appreciate and the brands we love, where the customer chooses by himself to have business with your company.
And that is the first thing you need to know about marketing: the difference between “outbound marketing” and “inbound marketing”.
What is Marketing Really?
Marketing is not sales, not promotions, and not hot flashy offers.
Marketing is a strategy that drives your business to a position in the customers’ minds, and pockets, where you can financially benefit from the effort you have invested in that area.
At the center of every marketing operation is the customer, the customer is why we do every action that we do in our marketing strategy, why we make any meeting, and why we take any decision. The customer is at the center of the process. This is called the “customer centric approach”.
And for that customer we start planning for our marketing strategy, notice ” a strategy” not “a tactic”, and the elements of that strategy are the basic 4 Ps:
- Product
- Place
- Price
- Promotion
But before we dive into the basic 4 Ps …
Who is the Customer?
If the customer is at the center of our strategy and we are following a customer-centric approach then we need to know who is our customer?
If you answer this question with the word “everyone” then you need to do some research.
If everyone is your customer then you have no customer.
Because in this era we like brands that design their products in a way customized to our needs and preferences, products that make us feel special, not products for “everyone”.
Even if your product is for lots of people, those people are different, those people belong to different segments. So you need to have understanding of the segments and the characteristics of those segments that’s in your market.
How to Know What Segments Form Your Market?
The answer to this question is market research. You need to collect data about your market so you can understand who is your audience and what are their needs and preferences.
Now the question becomes: How to do market research?
The answer depends on the degree of precision you want for your research. A higher degree of precision will cost you more time, effort, and money. And that simply means to either go to a specialized market research agency so it performs for you the research you need. Or to hire a specialized researcher who performs for you the research you need and provides you with all the data you need so you can make the right decision.
But I would assume as a small business a more affordable research option would be appealing to you.
The beauty of the internet is that it’s a powerful multi-purpose marketing and communications tool. If you know how to use it you can achieve a lot.
To do market research in an affordable way we’re going to use two methods:
- Social Media Research
- ChatGPT Consultation
People hang on social media platforms for tons of their time, they chat on it, have discussions, ask for help, if someone had a bad experience he would talk about it on social media, and if someone is facing a problem he would ask his social media fellows for help.
And that is all the data you need to understand your market and your consumer preferences.
Observing and engaging with your audience in a strategic way on social media can provide you with all the data you need, as a small business, to make the right decisions about your products and promotions.
Also, ChatGPT has been trained on Terabytes of internet data for years, consulting it about your business and customers would provide you with the insight you need to make the right choice in your business decisions.
How to Position Your Business As A Market Leader in Your Customers’ Mind?
Now you know your customer, how to make them trust you and do business with you? That’s the question of positioning.
My definition of positioning is: designing the 4 Ps in a way that reflects the desired image of the business into the customers’ minds.
The 4 Ps basically are what you have control on in the business game, you can’t force your customers to buy from you, but you can set competitive pricing. You can’t remove every competitor from the market, but you can beat them with your promotions.
Covering all the 4 Ps in this article could make it longer than some books, so we are going to discuss them in detail in later articles.
Conclusion
This article is not intended to be a course in marketing, rather it is intended to familiarize you with the basic concepts of marketing.
As a business owner you need to have at least basic understanding for marketing in order for your business to succeed.
Marketing should be the leading department of your business because customers are fed up with cold calls that are irrelevant to them and would highly appreciate marketing promotions that are tailored and customized for their needs, which is the job of a professional marketer.
