1 – New businesses should focus on making their product perfect instead of wasting time on other things
It is true: good marketing won’t save a bad product. On the flipside, you should not expect your product to be good enough to sell itself. No matter what your business is, you are in an ocean of competitors, each one telling their own unique story.
If you are a new or small business, you are probably concerned that you don’t have a big enough marketing budget yet. But that doesn’t mean you should lose focus on marketing; it just means that you should put a little more time and effort into creating a low-cost plan.
Setting up your marketing early on means that you are building a sustainable, scalable business. And that is well worth the effort and the funds.
2 – Marketing = advertising
While a huge part of marketing does include advertising, the bigger picture is much more than just investing in a few billboards or a nice social media ad.
As a marketer, you should spend time on:
- Products that solve your customer’s problems
- Prices that they are willing to pay (and that are profitable to you)
- Maintaining a steady supply of new customers (while retaining existing customers)
- Ensuring that your product is available at the right place and the right time
- Keeping your product at the top of your customers’ minds
In the bigger picture of marketing, advertising is crucial. But it isn’t the only thing you should think about.
3 – It delivers instant results
Because we live most of our lives online now, we think that marketing should bring us growth and profit in a few days. If it isn’t, we must be doing something wrong, right?
Wrong.
The goal of marketing is to build a consistent value for your company, with steady growth. And like anything else, it takes times for the efforts to pay off. For example, SEO strategies could take months to reflect in your website’s traffic. Social media growth could take a long time and chasing viral fame will only bring frustration. Email marketing could take a lot of rework before it brings you leads.
Many marketers, especially in smaller businesses, are tempted to change the whole plan if it doesn’t bring results immediately. One recommendation: stick to the plan for a year, and only make small tweaks. If it isn’t bringing you the results you need, then change the plan.
Overall, adjust your expectations as a marketer. Remember: this is a marathon, not a sprint.
Looking to learn the fundamentals of marketing? Sign up here for our online course, Marketing Management, by IIMB professor Ashis Mishra.
Recent Comments