What is marketing?
Marketing 101.
For some it means advertising. For some it evokes fear and overwhelm? For some it means something very expensive and only for big companies.
It is:
• Creating a product or service that is needed/in demand
• Setting a price
• Providing a “place” to sell
• Promoting
Put simply, marketing is about advertising your product or service to the people who want to buy it.
Marketing is getting potential customers interested and made aware of. After all, if you don’t have customers or potential customers, you don’t have a business!
Marketing helps you identify who these people are they could or should buy from you. It also helps work out the words to say to these people to advise them on what you have buy. These words will include your USP and features and benefits.
Marketing is telling people what is available, why they need it and how much it will cost. This is brand awareness.
Marketing is about finding ways to reach people using forms of promotion – eg physically as in a place in shops, cafes, networking events and exhibitions etc as well as virtually through websites, social media, advertising, press releases, email marketing, direct mail, videos, podcasts etc.
It’ simply letting people know about you/your business. You will do this daily I’m sure intentionally and also without knowing eg chats at the school gates, at networking, by sharing social posts and so on.
Find out more here
“The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.” – Peter Drucker, management consultant, educator, and author.
Who needs marketing?
All businesses, regardless of industry, niche and size! Even if, given the recent weather, you are a roofer or garden fence supplier or a road grifter or pot hole fixer, then you DO need to do marketing …
If you think you don’t need marketing or perhaps if you have never needed it before but now you do, listen up.
Here is why you do need marketing, even if you think you don’t or never had before:
• Raise awareness for your service
• Attract and enagage potential customers to sell to (once you have identified a niche – more on this another time)
• Understand your competitors
• Brand awareness and personal branding – and telling a story
• Gain an advantage over your competitors and gain market share
• Increase customer loyalty
• Define and showcase your USP and messaging
• Know your why and your reasons
And to stop you wasting time and money on the wrong marketing. Marketing, as I always say, is not a tick box excercise.
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Project Management
Quality, Speed and Cost. Can you have it all?
As this article suggests balancing these three sure is a difficult task. A good university education or experience of judging from the sidelines is not enough to succeed at it. At first, mistakes are inevitable. The basis for progress is the ability to learn from these mishaps. The first lesson is careful planning.
The Project management triangle is a pretty well-known concept. In short, it states that an equilibrium point between cost, speed and quality is unattainable. Is it rather a myth or a fact?
Finding the optimal solution can be challenging.
If you cannot have it all, what would you be willing to compromise on when it comes to your marketing? Quality, speed or cost? …
“Marketing is not the art of finding clever ways to dispose of what you make. It is the art of creating genuine customer value.” In this foundational quote, Kotler emphasizes the shift from a product-centric to a customer-centric approach.
“I contacted Nicole at Pinpoint Marketing at a crucial time of year for us, when sales should be at their peak but we didn’t have the time to strategise or implement related marketing. Nicole was quickly responsive and suggested various tailored solutions, which she carried through at speed. Highly recommended!” Read more testimonials
