Business Marketing 101

Business Marketing 101 is not without its charlatans who will promise you the moon if you trust their secret techniques software programs for marketing and sales success.

Why Marketing 101?

  • Small business owners consume better things, like producing and delivering valuable products and services for their customers, than digging the truth out of the trash.
  • No one would hold you accountable if you ever felt overwhelmed and confused and thought effective marketing was out of your reach.
  • That’s where we’ve put together this manual on marketing basics, Marketing 101, for small business owners.

How to detect bad advice?

As business owners, we all need more customers, and the faster/easier/cheaper it is to acquire them, the better, right?

  • Yes, in sequence. We can certainly agree on that.
  • However, it is important to realize that there are no natural shortcuts to customer acquisition.
  • Instead, you must push yourself and establish a systematic approach that is the only viable path to consistent long-term success.
  • So how do you spot the switch between a fad or gimmick and a legitimate, proven marketing practice?
  • So your best protection against bad (and expensive) marketing decisions is to truly understand the basics of marketing, and then weigh any new marketing tips you come across against this.
  • If you do this, you’ll soon become adept at discerning which advice is worth considering and which you should drop like a hot brick.

What is Marketing?

Marketing is not just putting up a fancy business website and hoping that sales will increase. There is a little more.

Around crucial points to consider about marketing:

  • Marketing is an ongoing procedure, not a one-time project.
  • Here promotion and marketing are not the same. Raise is just one of many aspects of marketing (and usually one of the last steps in the marketing process).
  • Here, marketing begins with product inception: determining customer needs and wants, and then researching and developing brilliant products and services to meet those needs.
  • However, marketing involves pricing your products at just the right point where you maximize overall profits (balancing a low enough value to encourage sufficient sales volume and a high price to keep profit margins strong).
  • Pricing also involves planning strategies like offering coupons, discounts, etc. to drive sales.
  • Once you’ve developed your products and strategically priced them.
  • You need to work on distribution channels—that is, how do you make your products available and accessible to customers?
  • Raising can only be done effectively once you have researched and developed your products, strategically priced them to improve cash flow and profits.
  • And generally established sufficient distribution channels. Without completing the entire marketing cycle, promotion is costly and will fail.

The basics of creating clients:

So what is the fundamental core process of successful marketing?

High volume sales, customer acquisition, and overall success are the result of:

  • Contribution is a valuable product/service that you can produce/execute smoothly and consistently.
    You identify your target audience(s), potential consumers who will find value in your product/service.
  • Creation of your products/services with easy access and active demand and closing of sales.
  • Discover profitable communication channels through which you can reach your target audience.
  • We communicate well (and often) and build rapport with each target audience through the appropriate channels.
  • Offering the products, services and benefits that you have promised to your consumers. Never promise what you cannot deliver.
  • You are repeating and expanding the process.
  • That’s it, no smoke or mirrors essential. These marketing basics apply to both online and offline marketing and promotion.
  • Here they are as applicable to the smallest family store as they are to the largest multinational corporation.
  • Spot your skills and talents as you learn the basics, follow these steps honestly and thoroughly, and you’ll be successful.

Evaluate your marketing

If your business is currently struggling (or even doing well), review the Marketing Definition and Marketing Basics to determine where you could improve your efficiency and effectiveness.

Ask yourself questions like:

Consume products and services developed to meet the real needs of your real customers?

Have you surveyed your customers (or just talked to them) to determine how they feel about your products and what can be improved?

The container that makes extra improvements to your products so your customers feel like they can’t live without them?

Have you priced your products low enough to make them affordable for your target customers?

And have you priced them high enough to make enough profit on each sale to make it worthwhile?

Do you have unique pricing strategies (coupons, discounts, deals, etc.) to encourage people to buy your products on a consistent basis?

Consume made its products easily accessible to customers?

Can they be obtained through multiple channels (eg, in your store, on your website, through third-party resellers)?

Are they always in stock here when your customers want to buy them?

Do you consume an ongoing promotion plan?

Are you promoting consistently and continuously?

Are you challenging your promotion to find what works best?

However, are you reinforcing successful promotion and removing/adjusting ineffective advertising?

Does it allow you to invest enough in promotion so that your sales reach the level you need to be viable?

  • These additional questions will help you assess your strengths and areas where you can improve. After that, you can create a strategic plan to take your marketing to the next level.