Marketing has had a huge impact on a huge number of business fields, including the music industry, banking, engineering, oil refining and the list goes on and on. Most importantly, internet marketing, combined with new technology, has impacted traditional advertising.
In the music industry, many consumers have started buying and downloading music online instead of buying CDs.
Internet marketing has also affected the banking industry. More and more banks are offering their services online. Online banking is more convenient for the customer because it eliminates the need to visit the bank or its offices every time.
In the United States today, about 50 million people use online banking. Online banking is one of the fastest growing sectors of online business. Increasing Internet connection speed plays an extremely important role in this. About 44% of all Internet users, use online banking.
The development of auctions has greatly influenced the prices of unique and antique items. If previously it was difficult to find information about the price, now it is possible to look up the price of a similar item at an auction. And have at least a general idea of the cost of the goods, as you can always find out how much a particular item was sold for. More and more sellers of such goods are doing their business online, sitting at home.
The effect on the advertising industry has been and continues to be truly tremendous. Within just a few years, online advertising has skyrocketed to tens of billions of dollars a year. Internet marketing has had quite an impact on the B2B sector, and that impact is increasing every day.
How does online marketing affect your business?
Today, it’s hard to find a large industrial enterprise that doesn’t promote itself online. Growth trends can easily be seen in the constant expansion of online marketplaces, as well as the increase in their number. Online marketplaces have long stopped being the message boards from which they grew up. Today, some of them have become large corporations that provide a range of marketing services. Prices for participation on such sites (or privileged membership) are also increasing, although the number of sites is increasing.
The only thing that is not marketing, according to some marketing experts, is the process of selling itself, which is the result of marketing.
What is the tension between habit and marketing
What do most small business owners do every day? They have a business vision: to offer the best product to market, to work beyond competition, and to serve a lot of happy and satisfied customers who have been talking about their company for years. But instead of making a plan to achieve all of that, they come into the office every day and work hard, relying only on what they can easily handle. That’s simply buying any advertising cheaply or selling their products at a discount, hoping to attract the right customers who will appreciate their work and be willing to pay for their services on a regular basis. They then expect all those customers to tell their friends and acquaintances about them.
Every business needs a strategy
In practice, marketing strategy affects all functions of a business. Coordinating the various departments of a company through a marketing plan is crucial to eliminating disruptions and breaks in quality of service. As a result, marketing increases the actual profits of a business. A marketing strategy looks at all areas of a small business through the lens of satisfying known and hidden customer needs, helping salesmen generate revenue.
Marketing strategies cover important aspects of business operations such as:
- Identifying the need for services through consumer preference research to identify the most effective sales models for similar products in the marketplace;
- Changing the consumer features of services offered to the market or creating new ones to meet actual customer needs;
- Determining how best to attract potential customers by informing them about new goods, persuading them to buy the services;
- Creating advertising campaigns based on the most effective way to reach potential customers;
- Maintaining customer relationships through follow-up promotions and loyalty programs;
Simplifying the product development process
Marketing strategy helps small businesses create new services that have the best potential for profit. This is because marketing planning begins with market research, taking into account the demands of the optimal target market. Using information about demand and trends, it is possible to determine what customers want and what benefits they expect. In this way you can differentiate your own product from the services of your competitors, and gain consumer confidence and purchasing demand.
Marketing helps to determine the optimal prices
Part of a marketing strategy is to set a fair price for a company’s services, based on information from market research. If you have learned that customers want a high quality, high category product, so a pricing strategy may require the company to sell services at high prices that create perceived high-end value. If your target customer intends to bargain consciously and is willing to buy more at lower prices, the company’s pricing strategy should include discounts and additional preferences.
Marketing builds better product distribution
Once a small business has positioned its product to its target market, the business owner will be able to choose effective sales channels that will maximize the company’s profits. Effective marketing is determined by a thorough understanding of the customer database. Younger people will prefer online sales with card payment at an online store. Older customers prefer direct communication, and therefore need an office and front office staff. Quite often, for example in the entertainment industry, businessmen have to turn to the services of a distributor. This is due to the the need to reach a very wide geography of potential customers.
Online Campaigns
Promote your website through contextual and targeted advertising. By determining the location and profile of your potential clients, you will be able to form a client database that you will already be working with. Of course, to set up such advertising you need to have certain qualifications, so it’s worth taking help from specialists.
Website, site promotion (SEO)
Many clients nowadays look for everything they need just on the Internet. You don’t want to lose a customer just because he didn’t find the information he needed about a product, its benefits and cost, and purchase options on your website.
Social Media
For information: in 2020, the number of people who regularly visit the social network Facebook has increased by eight percent over the year to 2.5 billion – about a third of the world’s population, and the total audience of social networks has exceeded 3 billion users. But you should be careful with SMM-promotion: many people go there to distract themselves, and serious posts, for example, about cargo transportation, they are unlikely to be interested in.
Be creative: think of advantages for your business that will attract attention to you. Even if your business is in the B2B sector. Use simple, yet high-quality visualization tools that make it easy for anyone to understand what services your company provides. Find your top free screen recorder without watermarks which is fast and easy to use with lots of features. It’s good for creating recordings with sound, editing videos, saving and sharing them.
Cross-Marketing
You’re not alone in the world of marketing promotion – there are likely to be companies that will be able to partner with you. Negotiate with them to exchange banners on websites, social media posts, business cards in the office, etc. Not a bad option – the promotion “Buy our stuff — get a discount on a partner’s goods”.
Much depends on the sector in which you work. For example, for B2B companies the main tool can be a mailing of business proposals to organizations that may be interested in you as a counterparty. In this case, you need to write this commercial proposal competently and hire a good salesman who can reach out to decision makers.
B2C companies focused on an ordinary customer will work with the target audience differently. A grocery store will put up a sign saying “We’re open,” hold product demonstrations, organize promotions and contests for customers, and put leaflets to the mailboxes of neighboring houses.
Often aspiring entrepreneurs are afraid to use digital methods to work with the target audience. Digital marketing techniques require less financial investment compared to the offline, and help to evaluate all the metrics of customer demand more transparently and validate your business model. You can see how many customers came to you through specific digital channels, how many of those who received information about you were interested in it, how many customers went all the way to placing an order, and how many of them came back to you in the future.
Conclusion
Marketing is a practical activity, a system of management functions, with the help of which organizes and manages a complex of actions related to the assessment of the purchasing power of consumers, with its transformation into a real demand for products and services. Marketing has gone through a number of phases in its development.
The benefits of online promotion can be much greater than traditional methods of communication. You get new customers that you have spent very little money to attract.
And most importantly, don’t forget to constantly evaluate how effective your overall marketing strategy is, and adjust it if necessary. I am sure: a business whose owner understands his target audience and knows how to interact with it correctly, is sure to achieve success. Good luck with your promotion!