Marketing: Businesses’ Way of Reaching Out to Customers
In layman’s terms, marketing is defined as the variety of activities used in order to sell a product or service. It’s also defined as a business’ way of communicating the value or worthiness of their product or service to customers, based on the consumer’s wants or needs. With that, it is perfectly clear why a good number of businesses get aggressive in persuading consumers to buy their products or try out their services.
To dispel the confusion between marketing and advertising, the former involves using a great mix of communication and business activities to sell the product. On the other hand, advertising is one of the business activities that use a level of persuasion to announce or promote a product or service. This means advertising is a sub field under marketing. Besides advertising, other sub fields includes business subjects such as sales, promotion, market research, and public relations. These subcategories make up the core objectives of the main subject.
In communicating with the consumers into buying the product or service, managers and business executives greatly rely on marketing techniques and strategies. These strategies involve strategies such as market research and surveys, where both gauge the perceptions and behaviours of consumers as well as their wants and needs. Market research involves studying the market trends of consumers and buyers, based on tastes and preferences. On the other hand, market surveys are forms of research to get direct responses from consumers. Both techniques aim to determine the target markets and demographics that are likely to buy a company’s products or services. All the information collected serve as references for companies when creating campaigns.
Marketing campaigns are the main examples of communication, in which businesses convince customers to purchase their goods or services. These campaigns can either be direct or indirect. Direct campaigns may come in the form of public and digital advertising. In this type of campaign, businesses go straightforwardly to inform the value and worthiness of a product or service. Examples of direct campaigns are signboards, posters, and TV commercials, in which businesses directly persuade or entice customers into buying or purchasing products. Online advertising is also an example of a direct campaign.
On the other hand, indirect campaigns are when companies take a more subtle approach to market their products or services. An example of an indirect campaign is the referral system, wherein a business requests a client or customer to refer them to other people. Another example of an indirect campaign is word-of-mouth advertising, wherein a person recommends a product or service to another person. A company may choose to implement both direct and indirect campaigns.
Marketing is an extremely necessary field to study before putting up a business or working for a company. Again, it is a mix of business activities to entice customers, and certain people such as entrepreneurs and managers must understand that they need to know more about this field in order to sell their products and services. Besides that, it is needed to determine and evaluate the trending behaviours and preferences of customers in terms of their wants or needs.