"A good marketer knows that marketing is an investment, not an expense."
Seth Godin
You've probably often heard or said the phrase yourself: I'm tired of routine work, I want to start my own business.
You start thinking about creating a product or an activity that you enjoy, in which you can realize your abilities, for which you have competence or experience, or which you enjoy learning.
You research information about this product or activity, create test samples, calculate production costs, establish contact with sales channels, and eagerly await sales success. But you are neglecting the most important moment: the customer himself!
"Don't look for customers for your product. Look for the product for your customers."
Seth Godin
Of all the activities necessary for starting a business, marketing is one of the most complex areas. Often, marketing is considered only advertising and increasing the awareness of a product or company, however, it encompasses much more, because the object of research is the consumer market, market trends, company opportunities and risks, competitors and, most importantly, the consumer himself, his psychotype analysis, his consumer behavior, expectations and desires in relation to your product. The analysis of all this requires long, observant, concentrated, complex and organized approaches, which many start-ups or even existing businesses do not have the human or financial resources. Added to this is the weakness of will and motivation, because often the data or results of such studies are inaccurate and are based on one's own imagination or assumptions. This is the reason why we often encounter many businesses with qualified personnel, satisfactory production facilities and good quality products, but with weak marketing and, accordingly, not strong enough sales. In other words, failure results from not finding a connection between the market and the product.
Many people think of marketing as a luxury only for large companies, with public relations departments, expensive advertising, or the involvement of an experienced marketing specialist, which is a wrong view. Marketing is a laborious task, but not insurmountable or associated with colossal sums of money. And it all starts with drawing up a marketing concept .
The first step is a situation analysis , which includes a market review and identifying your business opportunities in relation to the market.
A prerequisite for market research is to define the consumer segment for whom the product is being made. You need to imagine your consumer image generalized into a single persona and characterize it in as much detail as possible according to geographic, demographic, social, psychological, physiological, or behavioral criteria.
Then comes the so-called PESTEL analysis , which means an economic, socio-cultural, political, technological, economic and legal analysis of the environment (market trends analysis) now and in the future perspective, in which you intend to start a business or engage in business activities, and in relation to all this, an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and risks of your own company.
This is followed by competitor analysis. Analyze only those competitors that serve the same consumer segment as you.
The next step is devoted to the issue of positioning the company: what place do you occupy in the eyes of the consumer in relation to competitors. What is or what do you want your corporate image, appearance to be? What differentiation strategies do you prefer, do you want to differentiate at the level of product, price, distribution or communication.
In today's saturated market, companies increasingly distinguish themselves from each other at the level of communication with the consumer, because distinguishing themselves at the level of products, price or distribution does not give them much advantage. Providing a quality product on favorable terms and through sought-after distribution channels is already a necessary minimum to maintain a position in the market. Creativity at the level of communication has no limits.
A company communicates most effectively when it is engaged in brand building .
"A brand is an emotional connection between you and your customers."
Martin Lindstrom
The stronger and more positive the emotion, the stronger the consumer's interest and loyalty towards the company's products. Emotion drives us to the act of buying.
"People don't buy for logical reasons, they buy for emotional reasons."
Zig Zigler
Therefore, it is important what promise and values you build your brand story on and how you tell this story to the customer. Apple tells us how to be unique and innovative (Think different), Nike encourages us to express ourselves and our abilities without complexes (Just do it), Mercedes calls us to be ambitious, to want only the best for ourselves, or nothing (The best or nothing).
"Competition of values is more important than competition of prices."
Miriam Hauser
When developing a brand, we cannot ignore branding elements (logo, slogan, corporate color, style, packaging, etc.) that help the brand become recognizable in the eyes of the consumer.
The brand is constantly online with the consumer with content tailored to its segment .
Successful content marketing is about delivering a brand's story to a selected audience at the right time and in the right form.
"We attract customers with headlines, but we retain them with information."
Alfred Harmsworth
Proper content marketing helps to positively present the company and brand, increase the visibility of the company's social networks in search engines, and find potential clients in terms of views. Here too, it is not necessary to have a marketing specialist or copywriter who will take care of your content if the company does not have the resources for this. You can adapt this profession yourself and offer users topics tailored to their interests and curiosity in the form of articles, relevant videos, video master classes, documentary materials, analysis of well-known studies in the field, blogs, stories, or sharing user experiences.
One of the most effective ways to distribute content is through social media , such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, a website, and more. Here too, it is not mandatory to hire a social media manager if the company has modest revenues at the initial stage. You can combine his function yourself if you are not lazy and learn the basic information about social media, how to manage your social platforms, how to place ads, how to monitor page data and statistics, and how to measure the results obtained.
If you think that collecting information from so many directions and then analyzing it is quite a laborious task, you are not mistaken. Therefore, business requires your full concentration, and not your involvement in several parallel activities outside the business, which is quite common in our reality. This is sometimes due to financial reasons, because your own business sometimes generates insufficient income to meet personal needs, sometimes due to work obligations that do not allow you to be alone with your own business. The situation is also complicated by the lack of appropriate business education and experience, although there is always a simple solution in the form of numerous available courses and qualified consulting services. So the main thing is the desire to do business correctly and marketing is insurmountable!
* Seth Godin – American author and entrepreneur
* Martin Lindstrom – Danish author
* Zig Zigler – American author and speaker
* Miriam Hauser – Swiss marketing professor
* Alfred Harmsworth – British publisher and tycoon
