What Is Marketing?

What is Marketing? Another way to put this is what does marketing mean to you and your business? Maybe you are new to marketing or new to building a business? We are going to talk about what marketing is all about today! 

Over the years, marketing has changed its meaning. I could get into that, but, do you really care about that? Or should I just get into it?! Let's get into it!

Modern Marketing for Your Small Business

Yes, marketing for your business can mean a number of different things these days, but a modern approach to marketing for your small business is to think of this business task as something you do to:

1. Educate your audience or potential customers
2. Create Trust with these same people and
3. Build Awareness of your business with your community.

Educating Your Customer Base

I’d like to elaborate some on what it means to Educate your audience and what you can do to Educate your potential customer base.

Educating your audience is an “easy” way to create content for your marketing. It’s basically telling your customer base everything they want to know about your business, about your trade, about how you can help them solve their problem. Bam! There is a ton of stuff for you to talk about right there. 

You can share this type of info everywhere you market in every fashion you like to use: video, still images, text, infographics, print and even through discussions and talks you hold at networking events.

Creating Trust

Creating Trust with your potential customer is what marketing is all about. By sharing what you know, making them more comfortable with what you have to offer and what your business is about will grow a bond between you and your audience.  

Providing great tips and information with your education marketing will build more trust between you and your customers. Your audience wants to know about you and what you have to offer before they hire you.

Building this bond happens with marketing more thoroughly now than it did in the past. You could educate on a smaller basis before and in a smaller location like newspapers, radio or with your brochures. But, now! You have the ability to educate and share with the public more and often!

Building Awareness of Your Business

Building awareness of who you are, the business and trade you are in and how you can help your customer base is a cornerstone of what marketing can do for your business. Getting your face, brand and name in front of people often is a big part of how you build that brand awareness.

You don’t need to be everywhere, because as a small business it will just create burn out trying to chase all these marketing options, but you should pick a couple, stick with them and create a good following. Over time (short or long), your customer base will become aware of who you are, what you have to offer and decide if they like you. Then you will get leads and customers! Boom - marketing at work! 

There are endless ways to get in front of your potential customer base so you can build your business and get more leads: social media, traditional media, flyers and brochures, networking, search engines and more. 

Can you think of other areas to get your business out in front of the public? Maybe you have used other types of marketing to spread the word about your fantastic Home Service and Trade Business?

Marketing Your Business

So, while I like the definition of today’s marketing to be a pretty simple one, executing your marketing to your target market can be vast and complex. It’s good to work towards simplicity so it becomes easy for you to continue to do on a regular basis.

Consistency with your Marketing

And, that’s why I also bring up Consistency in this article. If you are new to marketing, you will find this word will come up a lot. It’s another foundation of building your brand through marketing. Being consistent with Educating your public and Building Awareness of your business will continue to frame and shape how people see you, that people see you and why people like you! Creating Trust!

As a small business owner, I find being Consistent with my marketing to be the hardest part of running my business. It takes good planning and executing. Planning can be fun for many people, myself included. But, executing can be hard, confusing, boring, daunting, overwhelming, fun, exciting…. Right?! 

One of the best ways to accomplish this part of your marketing task and stay consistent with your marketing plans is when you are putting together your marketing game plan, break down your steps as small as necessary so you can implement them as easily as possible.

From this planning process, you can create monthly, quarterly and yearly systems to make your Consistency come easier.

What Do You Think?

(You can also hire someone to put you ahead of the pack and keep your marketing going non-stop even when you get extra busy or want to take some time off!)

I really want to know how your marketing is going so far? Do you need help getting the planning started? Or maybe the planning implemented? Share with us what you’ve been doing already to market your business! Do you better understand what marketing is all about?