Marketing Tips

mar·ket·ing (mär ke ting)
n. Abbr. mktg.

The act or process of buying and selling in a market. 

The commercial functions involved in transferring goods from producer to consumer. 

According to Sergio Zyman, the former marketing guru at Coca Cola,

"The sole purpose of marketing is to get more people to buy more of your product, more often, for more money."
Source: The End of Marketing as We Know It
Copyright 1999 by Sergio Zyman
Published by HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

I like this definition a lot. Getting more people to buy more of my stuff, more often for more money.

Hey, I can do that! So can you. 

What is Marketing?

In a nutshell, marketing is doing things to get your customer to buy your product or service. 

The business discipline called "marketing" does a whole bunch of other things that don't sound anywhere near as glamorous as the word "marketing" does. In fact, it sounds a lot like, well, math. There I said it. Marketing involves math. Now before you go running away, I should tell you that marketing also involves a whole bunch of really cool, creative stuff including advertising, promotions, sponsorship and public relations.

But let's clear up the math stuff first. 

If you want to create successful marketing programs for your business, then treat marketing the same way you would treat your accounting, forecasting and inventory control departments. These areas of your business have one thing in common. They involve numbers. When you look at your business' financial records, you want them to tell you one thing only. The truth. You want to know what sold, what didn't sell and how much stuff you have left. Numbers can't lie to you. Seeing your "bottom line" in black and white is often an eye-opener (and sometimes a little discouraging) but it often is a catalyst for change.

Marketing must be treated the same way. No matter what marketing tools you decide to use, one of the most important things you'll need to do along the way, is figure out how you are going to measure and evaluate your marketing efforts.

Yes, that's right. You have to measure and evaluate your marketing to know if it works

If you don't know how to measure the results of your marketing program, how are you going to know if it helped you sell more stuff, to more people, more often, for more money?

H'mm I Was Reading This Segment of DW Because I Wanted to Start Marketing Today. Can't I Jump Right In and Market Now?

Of course you can! You can do anything you want anytime you want. 

How do you know if you're ready to go marketing right now?

Here's a few questions for you.

1. What market research have you conducted?
2. Have you analyzed your potential?
3. Have you set goals and objectives for your marketing program?
4. Have you decided which forms of "persuasive" communication you would like to use (public relations, advertising, sponsorship)?
5. Do you have a way of measuring the results of your marketing programs?
6. Can you multi-task, i.e. track your results from several different marketing initiatives in order to be able to properly attribute increases in business to specific marketing programs?

If you've answered NO to even one of these questions, then you might want to stick around for a while to see if the information I'll be providing in this segment of DW makes sense to you.

Does This Mean I Can't Do ANY Marketing Until We're Done Here?

No, of course not. That would defeat our purpose. This section of DW will be about learning how to do things by actually doing them. The benefit of being here is that I won't recommend you buy full-page ads in Cosmpolitan or email 5000 editors your press release.

This section will show you how to do things simply and inexpensively and hopefully provide you with ideas that help you grow your business while you learn. It's kind of like a hands-on tutorial. 

I'll also be providing you with links to sites with information on marketing, or to real examples of marketing initiatives that I find interesting and effective. 

Due to the scope of the information I'd like to pass on to you, I'm going to keep these columns (relatively) short. That way, after you've read one, you'll have time to digest the information, research a little bit on your own (to see if I make sense) and try to do some of the things I've talked about.

I'm excited about having the opportunity to work with each and every one of you. If you have any questions about the information contained in these columns please email me at nicole@digital-women.com. I'll do my best to answer you as quickly as possible.

Thanks for being here. Next month we'll take a look at market research and how to find out who's buying your products or services. I hope you'll join us again.

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