In his book Marketing in the Second Century, Philip Kotler defines marketing as “the process of creating and offering value to customers.” Value can come in many forms, including price, quality, service, and experience.
Creating value for customers is not a simple task. It requires an in-depth understanding of your audience and what they find valuable.
Marketing is not a static discipline. The way you market will change with the times, especially as technology advances at a rapid pace. For example, 10 years ago, having a strong social media presence was not a big factor in marketing. Today, it is one of the most important parts of the marketing mix.
There are five main roles within any organization that utilize marketing skills. These include marketers themselves, salespeople, entrepreneurs, corporate managers, and policy makers (Politicians!).
Create value for your customers
In the era of customer service, the marketer’s job is to get people excited about a product, to create demand for a product.
And this can be done in several ways. You can create awareness about a new product or service through marketing campaigns, social media influencers, and digital and traditional ads.
You can make it easy for people to purchase your products or services by offering seamless payments and shipping options. You can make your products and services valuable by providing quality materials and/or services.
But all of these efforts miss the point: The true goal of marketing is to create value for customers.
Marketers need to understand what customers want — not just what they want to buy, but what they want out of buying it. Then, marketers have to find ways to deliver that wants.
Deliver the value to your customers
In other words, as marketers, it is our job to let the public know about the value our company provides. This can be through traditional marketing like print and radio ads, or social media like Facebook and Instagram.
It can also be by offering deals and discounts to customers via these channels. For example, placing signs outside of your store offering a discount for customers that enter their name and email on a landing page is an easy way to promote new products.
Marketers need to be aware of the changing landscape of advertising. The rise of social media has dramatically shifted how people receive information about companies and products.
To truly succeed at marketing, you have to understand how to use these platforms to your advantage.
Listen to your customers
Your customers know what they want, but they don’t know how to get it. As a marketer, your job is to figure out what your customers want and how to give it to them.
You do this by listening to their conversations. You listen in on the conversation they are having with your brand, with your competitors’ brands, and with themselves.
You listen to the complaints they make and the things they ask for. You listen for shifts in what they say or want that happen across different channels, times of day, seasons, or other external influences.
Marketers today have more tools at their disposal than ever before to listen to their customers. This includes traditional ones like phone surveys and in-person interviews but also new technologies like chatbots and social media listening tools.
Keep learning about your customers
Marketers need to keep their eyes on the consumer. What do consumers want? What are their needs and wants?
Consumers have a say in what products and services they use. Marketers need to understand why they make those decisions.
They need to pay attention to how consumers talk about products and services, how they buy them, and how they use them. This includes paying attention to social media as well.
Marketers need to keep learning about their customers, their demographics, and all aspects of their lives in order to market to them effectively.
That’s because consumers are constantly changing: Their needs and wants change, especially as society changes around them. The best marketers stay alert and aware so that they can address those changes.
Keep learning about marketing
Marketers should always be looking to learn more about marketing. There are a myriad of ways to do this, from reading books and articles, to attending seminars and speaking with experts.
As mentioned before, podcasts are a great way to hear about new trends, strategies, and ideas for marketing. Some good marketing podcast listeners can check out are The Marketer’s Interview, The Marketer’s Podcast, and Markerful.
Overall, the greatest asset a marketer can have is knowledge of current trends, strategies, and ideas in marketing. This will help you truly excel in your role and keep your organization at the top of the market!
Keeping up to date with the latest trends in marketing will help you succeed in your career. As alluded to earlier in this article, listening to podcasts is a simple way to gain insight into these trends.
Make sure the market is ready for your product or service
Marketers have a lot on their plates these days. Gone are the days when marketing was simply advertising.
Today’s marketers need to be well-rounded, with a wide breadth of knowledge about their industry, their customers, and the culture at large.
They need to be able to design creative marketing campaigns that are tailored to specific audiences. They need to be able to measure the success of their efforts and make adjustments as needed.
In fact, making sure your marketing is effective is one of the most important parts of the job. You can spend a lot of money on advertising or other promotional material, but if it does not resonate with your audience, then it was all for nothing.
Identify your target market
Marketers must first identify their target market. Who are your customers? What do they want or need?
For example, marketers for Procter & Gamble aim their advertising campaigns at middle-income households with average to above-average income. They know this because they conduct extensive consumer research every year.
They find out which products people want to buy and use and then try to convince them to use their products instead.
They do this through advertising, which can take the form of television commercials, radio ads, printed ads (like in a newspaper or a magazine), or digital ads (on social media or a company’s website).
By identifying their target market, Procter & Gamble is able to focus their advertising on the people most likely to buy their products. This helps them spend their advertising dollars more efficiently.
Define your target market
Marketers define a target market as a group of people who have similar needs and wants. They also spend money on similar things.
For example, people who want to learn a new language will spend money on language apps, books, and tutors. Therefore, marketers can target people who want to learn a new language by advertising language learning products and services on advertising platforms like Google AdWords.
By doing this, marketers can be sure that their target market is seeing their ads and has the opportunity to make a purchase. It also helps reduce ad spend by targeting the right people.
Targeting can be done by many different categories, including age, gender, location, race/ethnicity, education level, income level, lifestyle (such as vegans or pet owners), and personality (such as introverts or thrill seekers).
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