Facets of Marketing
by Scott F. Geld
http://www.marketingblaster.com
Marketing and sales are two different things and one
should not be confused for the other. Marketing covers
various aspects of business including advertising, public
relations, sales, and promotions. Marketing will involve
all the activities related to getting your product or
service into the market, promoting it through
advertisements, influencing customer behavior, and
encouraging and increasing sales to increase profits of
the business. Sales refer to the actual transaction of
handing over the product/service to the customer for a
price.
Marketing strategies have evolved many times over since
the introduction of the guerrilla concept over 20 years
ago by Jay Conrad Levinson. What was radical and
revolutionary has become routine and out dated.
Creativity is the name of the game and the aim is to send
the message across to the customer - one way or the
other.
Companies have to learn to be centered on their customer
rather than their product alone. It is important that you
have a marketing mindset, where you know what your
customers want, what their expectations from your product
are, how would you meet them, and how would you build a
reputation for your product and your company are the key
factors that the marketers have to look at and work
towards. If you are customer centric then your present
customers will come back to you repeatedly, but if you
happen to ignore and overlook them, then they definitely
disappear form your customer list.
Marketing is not an exercise that can be evaluated in
definite terms. The returns are not tangible and
apparent to the naked eye. Many managers opine that
their staff waste scarce dollars on marketing plans that
do not work. Little do they realize that this is an
investment that comes back to you many times over. Not
all campaigns are star performers. While some may yield
mediocre returns, others may zoom past the expectations.
For the ill informed, marketing is a generalist non-
specialization field that can be performed by any one.
These are the managers that need to take stock of the
situation, their thinking and perceptions. To have an
effective marketing campaign, the enrolment of a
specialist is a necessity - especially if you wish to
reap any rewards from the good money spent on this
effort.
The outside marketing agency or the professional
marketing consultant will be able to focus on all the
company's marketing requirements without being bothered
by the aspects like internal company politics or employee
relationships etc. These professionals are very aware of
the strategies that work for various products and the
strategies that will not work. For devising your
marketing strategies you definitely should take
assistance from these marketing professionals.
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