Marketing – Definition and Reasons for Use

1.1 Introduction

The concept of marketing is familiar to most people, however, not everyone will be aware of what is involved in the initial creation of a marketing strategy and implementation plan. However, by breaking the process into easy to follow modules, the concept of marketing your business will begin to appear easier than perhaps initially expected.

1.2 Definition of the Term 'Marketing' 

The general meaning of the term marketing is defined as 'the action or business of promoting and selling products or services, including market research and advertising. 

It is important to note that marketing is different to selling, even though one hopefully leads to the other. Selling refers to techniques and methods used in order to attract potential customers who will purchase your products/services. In the most basic terms, marketing is generating the demand for your product or service, whereas sales is convincing people to spend their money. They are two very different things.

FACT

The United Kingdom ranks fourth among the world's largest advertising markets, and second among markets in Europe.

Source: Statista.uk

1.3 Why You Need to Consider Using it as Part of Your Approach to Business

Marketing is an essential part of any successful business. Marketing makes people aware of your presence, which generates sales and increases turnover; to grow the business. We will look at the importance of marketing in more detail in the next module but it suffices to say that failing to have a marketing strategy will have a detrimental impact on the potential success of your business. There is a real need for you to develop a strategy and create a marketing plan if you are serious about running your own business. Failure to do so will be a hindrance.

Look at it from this perspective:

Global companies invest huge sums of money into marketing – thus proving how important it is. 

These companies are aware that they will generate a return on their marketing and as such are willing to invest time and energy from the outset. 

Marketing plays an important role in any company, and as we will explore throughout these modules, it is entirely possible for smaller businesses to create a workable and effective marketing plan.

1.4 Expectations

It is important to consider what you expect to achieve from your marketing exploits. 

This will depend on a number of important factors including how much money you spend, and it is not always necessary to spend a large amount to generate good results. In addition, your understanding of your market and customers will also have an impact in determining how effective the outcome is.

 It is important you understand your market and your customers to correctly ascertain what is possible from your marketing activities; for example aiming at a relatively small or specialised market will obviously have limitations.

1.5 Focus

Finally, we look at how important it is to stay focused and not get carried away with your ideas. This course will reiterate the need for you to keep your feet firmly on the ground and a wise head on your shoulders.

A number of companies have previously believed that they had developed an amazing marketing concept and plan, but still failed. Ideally you do not want to follow suit and the aim of this course is to ensure that you avoid this situation. Failure to correctly understand the mechanics of marketing could ultimately lead to costly mistakes.

Coming up with ideas for marketing can be fun but you should also be sensible with this from the outset. To avoid a plan that may not be logical or possible to action, you are advised to first consider the following questions.

Is there the market for this?

You need to be aware of your market and whether or not your idea is actually going to be able to impact them and make a difference to their decisions.

Is it within your budget?

No marketing plan should ever be put into action without careful consideration of the budget. We shall cover this in more detail within a later module.

What is the return you should expect?

Having an idea of the return you are likely to attain is extremely important. You do not want to spend time, effort and money on a plan that fails to hit its mark, and which could potentially put your business at risk.

There are a number of other things to consider with regards to an individual plan, including how to get it from point A to point B and the logistics of doing so. However, again the key point here is to keep grounded and be sensible with your ideas. It is all too easy to lose track because of the excitement of a concept - that may not actually prove viable in the real world.

MODULE SUMMARY

In this module, we primarily focused on the introduction to marketing and coming to terms with the simple fact that you must keep your feet on the ground with regards your marketing plan. 

The realisation that marketing requires planning and a good understanding of your customer base will allow you to move on to the next steps, which include learning more about your targets and how to put together your very first marketing plan that is within your budget.