What Is Marketing?

Marketing Is ...

Officially, marketing is all the activities that are involved in moving goods from the producer to the consumer, including market research, product development, pricing, sales, packaging, shipping, advertising, public relations, and more.

Marketing determines who wants or needs your product and under what conditions they will buy it, use it, and buy it again (and again) (and again).

Bottom line, the purpose of marketing is to create satisfied customers.

How Sales and Marketing Differ

Marketing is what you do to bring someone to the table; selling is what you do to close the deal.

Marketing deals with the overall product: Development, pricing, and positioning. It creates interest in your product and an environment where sales can occur.

Sales takes the product and customer information provided by marketing and convinces a customer to buy. Smart marketers complete the loop by soliciting feedback from their customers and salespeople.

Neither sales or marketing can stand on its own. The goal of a company is to make money. Since selling brings in revenue, everything ultimately revolves around sales. Yet, sales rely on marketing to be effective.

Why a Marketing Plan?

Why a compass in the wild? Why a rudder on a ship? Marketing is a process, constantly changing to adapt to the rough terrain of the marketplace.

A comprehensive, well-thought-out marketing plan allows you to track your efforts and, if necessary, change course quickly. It is one of the most important documents you create.

In order to engage in successful marketing, you absolutely must start out with a marketing plan.The difference between success and failure is the market planning and nothing else.

You are busy. Competition is keen. Markets change quickly. The reasons often given for not planning are the very reasons why planning is essential.

Here is how you are going to market your product, your plan:

-- solidifies a programmatic, coordinated approach

-- identifies your objectives

-- estimates market size

-- predicts market trends

-- establishes production capacity

-- creates methods to promote awareness

-- supports the sale of your products

-- forecasts sales and revenue

-- manages your products' appeal to customers

-- encourages the participation of your employees

-- serves as a benchmark for your objectives

-- projects how marketing will enhance profitability

Contact us today so we can get started on your marketing plan which will contain information needed to make your company successful.