Have you ever tried to describe what marketing is and then struggled to give a concrete answer?
Don’t worry, you’re not alone.
Marketing covers a vast range of activities and disciplines, making it a challenge to define. In this blog, we will cover some marketing basics and explain how to apply a few tactics.
What is Marketing?
The American Marketing Association defines it as:
“The activity, set of institutions, and processes country email list for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”
Which, to be honest, we find a little fluffy.
HubSpot defines marketing as:
“Any actions a company takes to attract an audience to the company’s product or services through high-quality messaging. [It] aims to deliver standalone value for prospects and consumers through content, with the long-term goal of demonstrating product value, strengthening brand loyalty, and ultimately increasing sales.”
This definition is better, but we feel it misses some key points. We believe marketing is much more.
Marketing is a dynamic and expansive realm that encompasses everything from deeply understanding your audience to honing the captivating tone of your copy, crafting irresistible content to connect with the right people and beyond.
It is not just about the act of selling something, but about why you’re selling it. It’s human psychology at its best, knowing why people buy and what motivates them to spend money with you.
In this article, we want to set out in more detail what marketing is and discuss marketing basics including the principles and theories that define it.
What’s the Main Purpose of Marketing?
Much like the definition of marketing, defining its purpose can be a challenge. But ultimately, marketing is about growth. That’s why it’s important to have a strategy in place and plan how it will be implemented.
Much has been written about it over the years, with several theories and concepts put forward to try and give some structure to the discipline. Below, we’ll address some of these marketing basics to show how modern marketers approach building a marketing strategy.
What Are the Four Ps of Marketing?
The roots of modern marketing can be traced back to 1964 when Neil Borden, from Harvard Business School, wrote about the 12-component marketing mix.
Neil attempted to define the main tasks undertaken by those working in a marketing capacity. At the time, marketing was still in its infancy, and most theories concerned manufacturing physical products.
Over time, the 12-component mix was refined and eventually, the four Ps of marketing emerged. This is certainly something you should know as part of some marketing basics:
Five concepts underpin marketing
The Production Concept revolves around formal part of the explanatory note mass marketing, assuming that customers seek easily accessible and affordable products. It emphasizes the notion of catering to consumer demand for readily available and cost-effective offerings.
The Product Concept states that a customer focuses primarily on a product’s quality, features, and benefits.
The Selling Concept is the concept of “hard sell.” It assumes your customer won’t buy from you unless you push them into it.
The Marketing Concept focuses on what your customer needs and asks what their biggest problem is. Figure that out, then develop a product to solve their issue.
The Societal Marketing Concept builds on the previous concept, and it says you should focus on your customers’ needs and make sure your solution is ethical and does not harm.
These concepts together form the basis of modern marketing, and it’s worth considering and understanding all of them, even if your main focus is on just one of the concepts.
What Are the Main Types of Marketing?
So, we talked about the theories of marketing, but contact lists what about the actual practical day-to-day practice? What does marketing for a business look like daily? This is a significant topic and too much to cover here, but for now, we’ll touch on a summary.
Marketing activities can be split into two areas under which all other activities fall. These are:
Inbound Marketing
Outbound Marketing
Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing is the process of building and deepening your relationship with your existing customers. This can include:
SEO – Search engine optimization or the process of optimizing your website to rank as highly as possible in Google search
Content marketing – Any content you produce, whether it’s on your social media or your website, counts as marketing.
Social media – Tied with content marketing, word of mouth is a powerful way to market your product.
Outbound Marketing
Outbound marketing is the process of finding new customers. It can take several forms, including print and TV advertising, flyers, billboards, face-to-face meetings, sales calls, and sponsorship deals.
Four Ways to Boost Your Business With Marketing
If you’re just starting out promoting your business or product, there are some things that you should be doing from the start of your journey to marketing what matters for your business.