What is marketing and why do I need it?

Marketing is defined in the dictionary as “the business activity of presenting products or services in such a way as to make them desirable”.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re a shop on the high street, a dentist’s practice or a manufacturer on an industrial park, you have to make your products or services attractive to potential buyers or your business will fail.

A large part of marketing could also be referred to as ‘common sense’.

Market, Message, Media

These are the only three things you need to think about:

Market – who are you selling to? Where are they located? What are their buying habits? (web based for example) What choices do they have (your competition)? And so on.

Message – often referred to as a USP or unique selling proposition, (a phrase invented by marketing people to enable them to sound clever) your message must say ‘why should people buy from you?’ as opposed to the other business around the corner.

Media – how are you going to deliver your message? An attractive shop window? Direct mail? Radio adverts? This is the area where most of your money will be spent and where there is a huge amount of choice.

Most people approach these three things in the wrong order; they first decide on the media, then write their message and often don’t think about their market at all.

This usually means they get to spend a lot of money achieving very little and being disappointed with their results. Working through the marketing process the correct way around will save you money.

Learn to say No

Another important skill will be the ability to say no. Many people will approach you with ways to spend your money on all different kinds of marketing; some of them will be very convincing and some will be very wrong for your business.

Try and think how you will feel if you’ve spent your money but had less business from it than you wanted. Will this sink your business or put you in real difficulty? Don’t take big risks unless you’ve thought them through, spread your money over several different activities. Some of the most effective marketing methods are free

Common sense should prevail in all of your decisions.