Marketing an Introduction

Now in this website, we will be mainly discussing online marketing, the principles of marketing , advertising and some key things you want to know. We will however be discussing some issues that do relate to offline marketing as well.

An introduction in the marketing world

What really is marketing or how would you define it?

Many people are under the wrong impression that marketing is all about advertising and selling and ultimately making money (well at least that is the principle behind it). However, marketing is about many many more things besides advertising and selling. Marketing summed up into a few words is about managing a customer relationship. It means satisfying the customer, knowing what they need, what they want, create a product of value ( that can be useful to the consumer) and provide good customer service. And that is marketing summed up in a nutshell.

What is the first thing you would advise a small business to do to start their marketing campaign?

Well, since this is just an introduction, I will start with the very very basics of marketing. Let’s say you are a small business and you already provide a service. I like dealing with service markets more for he simple reason that there seems to be more information on how to market your product than there is about how to market your service.

Alright for this page, let’s say we are a Horse Stable Directory like www.gvrdhorsedirectory.com and basically we are providing a free resource to stables or horse farms to be listed in our directory. Lets’ say we are only targeting the Lower Mainland. Our plan is to eventually to be able to charge for horse for sale ads, once of course we have the traffic.

So, this website and business is already created. The absolute first thing I would need to know what the USP (unique selling point) of this business is. In the case of the GVRD Horse Directory, it is that it is the only website for horse people in the Lower Mainland. There are other but it is the only one to cater only to the GVRD ( Greater Vancouver Regional District ). Now that I have the USP, I would need figure out who my customers are/would be. I would need to know my target market.

Author:
Alicia Harper
Alicia Harper Blog