Marketing

What is Marketing?

Marketing refers to business activities associated with communicating, advertising, delivering, or selling products or services to customers. A company undertakes the activities to promote the sale of a product or service to the target audience.

Marketing involves getting consumers interested in the product offerings by conducting marketing research and gaining a better understanding of the customer’s interests, tastes, and preferences. In the process, the marketing personnel creates a marketing plan, which entails all the activities and channels that the company will use to draw the customer’s attention to the products or services offered.

A well-thought-out and focused marketing plan will help the company keep its marketing efforts centered on the target market and consistently bring in more sales. It should cover the entire process from product creation, distribution methods, sales, and advertising methods.

Evolution of Marketing

The history of modern marketing can be traced to the 1950s when companies used various marketing methods to draw the customers’ attention to a product. Before then, companies used print media to place ads that enticed consumers to buy their products and services.

With the introduction of TV and the internet, companies became more creative in how they communicated product information to consumers. They conducted marketing campaigns across multiple platforms as advertisers competed to outdo other competing products in the market and get customers interested in their products. The marketing information should not only be promotional but also educational to convert more potential customers into successful leads.

Types of Marketing

The type of marketing that a company chooses depends on where the target market spends their time. The following are the main types of marketing that are relevant today:

1. Traditional Marketing

Traditional marketing refers to any marketing channels that existed before the advent of the internet. Examples of traditional marketing channels include print, telephone books, direct mail, phone, radio, and TV.

The channels above charge a fee that corresponds to the size of the ad, and it helps reach the targeted audience. Traditional marketing is considered one of the oldest marketing methods, and it is important when an advertiser wants to reach the local audience.

2. Digital Marketing

Digital marketing is the opposite of traditional marketing, and it leverages the internet to reach the target audience. The main forms of digital marketing include search engine marketing, content marketing, social media marketing, email marketing, PPC advertising, search engine optimization (SEO), etc.

Digital marketing’s become popular in recent years due to the technological and social shifts that allow consumers to research and make purchases online. It tends to be more cost-effective than traditional marketing because businesses can manage the ads on their own; they do not need to publish ads on print media or place ads on TV.

Digital marketing enjoys an advantage over traditional marketing because businesses can control what and how their target audiences see their ads, and they can measure the results of their advertisements in real-time.

3. Relationship Marketing

The relationship marketing strategy focuses on enhancing existing customer relationships to build customer loyalty and long-term engagement. The purpose of relationship building is to create stronger emotional connections between the customer and the brand as a way of maintaining formidable customer relationships. Without building relationships with existing customers, existing customers may look for alternative brands that offer better customer service.

Focusing on relationship marketing helps a business retain customers in the long-term and focus its efforts on creating new products or features that meet the arising needs of the consumer. Companies can leverage technology to offer specialized ads, deals, and better service to existing customers as an appreciation of their loyalty.

4. Brand Marketing

Brand marketing is a marketing strategy that promotes the company’s products or services in a way that makes the brand stand out. The strategy focuses on shaping the public perception of the brand name and creating an emotional appeal with the target audience through humor, creativity, and storytelling.

The goal of brand marketing is to generate discussion around a topic so that the brand name stands out uniquely from the discussion. For example, Apple Inc.’s strong brand equity can be attributed to its success in positioning itself as an innovative player in the technology industry. Apple products are associated with product quality, and the company uses creative communication to enhance sales for individual products and the overall brand name.

Marketing vs. Advertising

The terms marketing and advertising are often confused with each other, but they come with different meanings. Marketing incorporates business activities such as product development, market research, product development, customer support, etc., and it uses different channels to reach the target audience and create an interest in a company’s products.

On the other hand, advertising is a component of marketing that is carried out to create awareness of the company’s products. Advertising uses the data collected by the marketing department of the company to make the product or brand known to the target audience.

Related Readings

CFI is the official provider of the global Commercial Banking & Credit Analyst (CBCA)™ certification program, designed to help anyone become a world-class financial analyst. To keep advancing your career, the additional resources below will be useful:

• Brand Strategy
• Penetration Pricing
• Product Differentiation
• Walmart Marketing Mix
• See all management & strategy resources