Marketing Explained

By: Tash Hughes of Word Constructions

Every business owner and manager knows that marketing is essential to the survival of the business.

Yet many of these same people feel ill at the thought of actually having to do any marketing; many small business owners list marketing as the worst aspect of running their own business.

It is important and it can be scary, but what is it?

Marketing is essentially presenting your business, product, service or whatever else to the potential customers and clients. This group of people or businesses are known as the market you are selling to.

Without any marketing, nobody will know the business exists and it is likely to fail quite quickly. With the use of effective marketing, a business can rapidly expand and be very successful. This makes marketing a crucial part of every business; both time and money need to be allocated for this.

Part of the reason so many people hate marketing is because it has been built up as a specialised activity that most people can't do. This isn't true.

Some people are very good at marketing and find it easy to do, but that doesn't stop the rest of us being able to do our own marketing as well. And you may be surprised to know you have marketing experience yourself.

Think of your favourite sport and team; have you ever tried telling someone how and why it is so great? You thought of all the best features of the sport and spoke of them enthusiastically. Maybe you even convinced someone to give it a go?

Guess what? Yes, you were marketing that sport! And it wasn't that hard, was it?

Of course, marketing yourself and your business is much harder. You are personally involved so rejection seems worse and you don't want to be a show off by bragging.

Assuming you believe in your business and what it has to offer, you can make marketing a bit easier on yourself. Instead of thinking "please give me your money for this", try "this product will help you". If you believe that your product or service will be of use to the person, then offer it to them for their sake. Not only will this take the pressure off yourself, it will build genuine good will with the person you offer it to.

If marketing seems like a big ogre right now, don't ignore it and hope it will go away. It won't.

Instead, take small steps into the world of marketing and build it up. As you gain experience in both business and marketing, you will find more opportunities for marketing and may find it gets easier with time.

Each success you have in marketing can be used as the impetus to do some more marketing; resting on successful marketing attempts won't keep more business coming through the door and the success will boost your esteem for the next market.