Marketing

Colorado Springs Marketing Campaigns

Marketing is a huge field, it encompass areas as diverse as:

• advertising
• branding
• direct marketing
• event organization
• lead development
• in-person selling
• market research
• marketing plan development
• retailing
• wholesaling

Plus there are large subsections of marketing that can be independent areas of study, a few include:

• global marketing / international marketing
• Internet marketing
• search engine marketing
• search engine optimization
• there’s even political marketing

As time allows we’ll try to address each one of these areas separately, but for now, let’s get a good overview: Marketing, in its broadest sense, includes everything you do to promote the purchase of a product or service. There are some outlying areas of marketing (like the political marketing mentioned above), but for most of us, goods and services are what is being marketed.

Step number one for better marketing

Doing marketing steps in the proper order are a huge benefit to the marketer. Taking a little time beforehand to make sure there is a market for your idea will prevent much heartache that is far too common in business. It’s very difficult to sell an idea when the customers don’t realize they have a need for it.

In most cases market research should be done first, to determine what needs people have, and if they are willing to pay for a solution. A rough idea of a marketing plan should be considered too, before a marketable solution is found. Frequently even the roughest marketing plan will prevent mistakes from being made in the product development phase. Now a solution to these people’s problems must be found, designed or made. We’re not getting into product development or acquisition here, as marketers, that’s not really our problem.

Where are you?

Most of us are around step 4 or 5, with a definite product or service; and we’re praying to God for a huge market demand. Praying is a great idea, but we should also be doing some marketing too, so here goes:

If you haven’t already done so, figure-out who needs & buys your product or service. Why?

Because better targeting = lower advertising costs = more sales for less work.
Less work = lower costs = higher return on investment = more profit for you!
And isn’t that why we got into business in the first place?

Who are your best clients & what do they have in common?

Do whatever it takes to determine who your best customers are; form a think tank of friends and employees, create an aggressive outbound customer survey, or hire a consultant to get it done for you.  You need to know what they do in their daily routine, where they live, how they play, what they read & watch, where they hang-out and everything else about them.

Now that you know who those best customers are, where can you find more of them? Take your survey results to a list broker, a marketing consultant or local ad agency. Tell them you want to compile or purchase a list of people just like them & target ONLY those exact kinds of people to slash your advertising costs and explode your ROI (return on investment).

That’s the first step to correctly marketing your product or service. Follow the links to the right, under “Related Pages” for more steps and subscribe to this site, for free, to keep up with new news.  If you want our help to market your business, the your first step is to get a free advertising analysis.