In the ever so vibrant world of business, it is said that the functional domain of ‘Marketing’ is really important. This is perhaps most aptly brought out by the following set of questions that will fight for attention from the business owner or a marketing professional or even from business management students/aspirants:
Does one really know what their customers want? Does one really think that their customers trust their products? When was the last time one really saw a customer tweeting about their product or service? Was it really a complaint or compliment?
In all probability, the answers to all these questions will lie in the concept known as ‘Marketing’.
Truly speaking, it is how one markets their business determines if the enterprise will be successful or not. The chief reason for this is that, ‘Marketing’ is a tool used to create and maintain demand, relevance, reputation, competition and much more. And, without it, one’s business is likely to close down due to lack of sales.
Discussed below are nine big reasons why marketing is really important for business:
1. It works as a powerful way of engaging customers
It is important for any business to engage its customers. And, marketing is a tool to keep the conversation going.
Quite different from pushing one’s offers, engaging requires providing one’s customers with relevant information about their products and as well as their business. In other words, it is all about creating fresh content.
One should tell their customers what they don’t know. Let it be interesting and worth their time.
Today, social media happens to be one of the best platforms where one can engage their customers. A few organizations even use ingenuous short videos and other humor-laden tricks to engage their customer base.
By engaging one’s customers, marketing grants them a sense of belonging.
2. It helps to build and maintain the company’s reputation
The growth and life span of one’s business is definitely compatible to their business’s reputation. Hence, it would be apt to state that one’s reputation determines one’s brand equity.
A major chunk of marketing activities is normally geared towards building the brand equity of the company.
One’s business’s reputation is really built when it effectively meets the expectations of its customers. Such a business come to be considered a responsible member of the community. And, the customers become proud to be associated with the products.
Hence, marketers use effective communication, branding, PR and CSR strategies to ensure that a business’s reputation is maintained.
3. It helps to build a relationship between a business and its customers
It is required that businesses should build an enduring relationship of trust and understanding with their customers. The question is, how does marketing establish this relationship?
It is suggested that these marketing research segments should be based on demographics, psychographics, and consumer behavior.
This segmentation helps the business meet the needs of its customers and thereby gain their trust. The product team ensures the business delivers what is promised at the right time. This makes the customers brand loyal.
It is common knowledge that loyal customers will have the confidence to buy more products from you! This trust and understanding between the business and its customers really makes one’s commercial activities more fruitful.
4. It is an effective communication channel used to inform customers
Marketing informs one’s customers about the products or services they are offering to them.
By way of marketing, the customers get to know about the value of the products, their usage and additional information that might be helpful to the customers. It creates brand awareness and makes the business stand out amongst competition.
As we all know, there is stiff competition in the market and one needs to be a constant voice to convince the customers. Therefore, one must inform their customers of discounts and other competitive tricks that they intend to use.
Through these communications, marketing helps one’s business to become a market leader.
5. It helps to boosts sales
Marketing makes use of divergent ways to promote one’s products or services. Once a product has been advertised, it is already on the radar and this increases one’s chances of selling it.
Customers may want to try one’s products or services, and this will trigger a purchase decision.
And, when customers are happy about one’s products or services, they become their brand ambassadors without their knowledge. In fact, they will spread the word and their sales will begin to increase for sure.
Hence, one must ensure that they offer high-quality products and services to complement their marketing efforts.
6. It aids in providing insights about one’s business
Generally speaking, every marketer recognizes the need for targeting the right audience. So, it is crucial that one must have the right content to share with such an audience. One’s marketing strategies can help one establish what business messaging will convince the target audience.
At this point, one has to test different messages and see what works best for them.
And, once they have tested those different sets of messaging on their target audience, they will find a feasible baseline for their marketing efforts.
It actually acts as a metric and provides the insight needed to make one avoid the guesswork.
7. It helps one’s business to maintain relevance
Normally, every marketer is aware of the need for disrupting a potential consumer’s opinion about other products. But one shouldn’t make the mistake of taking this chance for granted.
Just because the client has never complained, a majority of businesses assume that they will always remain the client’s favorite brand. This actually is quite a wrong mindset. One will need to find ways to remain at the top of the client’s mind.
As a matter of fact, every relationship needs to be maintained. It is here that marketing helps one’s business to maintain a good relationship with customers by making them remain relevant.
So, one should not focus on gaining new customers before addressing the need to retain the present ones.
8. It creates revenue options
During the startup phase, one’s options are sparse since they are mostly cash-strapped. This limits one’s options.
As their marketing strategies start generating more customers and revenue opportunities, they will begin having more options. And, having options is comparable to having a nice war-chest.
Indeed, having options will give them the courage they need to penetrate new markets. One will then have the freedom to start letting go of customers who are too demanding to their sanity and well-being.
And, without marketing, they will be forced to continue working with clients that have outgrown and do not pay them well.
9. It helps the management team to make informed decisions
It is a norm that, every business is confronted with problems such as to what, when, for whom and how much to produce. In this situation, a complex and monotonous process determine the survival of one’s business. Consequently, businesses heavily depend on marketing mechanisms to make these decisions.
Why should one depend on marketing mechanisms? This is because, these mechanisms serve as a reliable link between their business and society. They cultivate people’s mind, educate the public, and convince them to buy.
Why marketing turns out to be so important in winning against one’s business rivals?
As one will be aware, their competitors are actively marketing their products. This should tell them why marketing is important. The ground reality is that, the only way to gain a competitive advantage over one’s competition is aggressive marketing.
Nevertheless, one does not have to be sleazy or negative while marketing against their competitor. They should simply conduct research on what their target market is expecting, and then find ways to deliver better products or services.
And, if one is offering a product or service that is new to the market, they need to be more aggressive and strategic without a doubt.
