Beginner’s guide to marketing

Marketing is the art of presenting your products or services to capture the attention of potential leads and prospects. It involves market research, targeting audiences, understanding needs, and offering value to persuade customers to buy. Marketing builds brands, nurtures customer relationships, and generates revenue. 

Why do you need marketing?

First things first, no new company can survive without a marketing strategy. Marketing encompasses advertising and impacts sales. For your products to achieve recognition, you must first create a loud brand identity and force your target audience to listen. 

Before discussing your first practical steps in marketing, here’s why you need to invest in it. 

Attracting customers and building loyalty 

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Marketing utilizes modern methods, like online marketing, to attract customers. Establishing a solid presence on social media and the internet is crucial. Consistently publishing valuable content for your target audience maintains engagement while addressing their problems, builds long-term relationships, and increases loyalty.

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Building a Strong Brand

Conscious consumers consider reputation when making buying decisions. Marketing builds reputation by conveying core values and social responsibility, meeting audience expectations.

Driving Sales

Marketing is crucial in reaching the target market, fostering interaction with potential customers, and staying competitive. You can increase product awareness, boost competitiveness, and generate more revenue by implementing suitable marketing methodologies. When leads convert into customers through ads and marketing content, they are more likely to make repeat purchases.

The first stage of marketing

Before investing in paid ads or creating thousands of content for different platforms, you must introduce people to your brand. Let people know that your brand is taking off and what products you have. For that, you will need to go through a few steps:

Define your target audience

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This step should’ve started before creating your first showroom or online store. still, as you start, you might have a vague idea about your target audience. But now, you must define your audience clearly; marketing is targeting. Who will you be targeting? Who might be interested in buying your product?

To draw a concrete, well-defined customer persona, you must ask yourself a few questions and look for a set of characteristics. 

An audience must have specific demographic and psychographic variables. Be as specific as possible because segmentation is the key to achieving high ROI. 

Define your marketing message

At this phase, the most obvious question is: “Why would a customer choose me over my competitors?” having a clear answer to this question will help you focus your marketing efforts on what matters the most. 

Craft a unique selling proposition (USP) to get a foothold in the market. If you’ve done a SWOT analysis when getting started, the outcome will be extremely helpful at this point. List what gives you an advantage over your competitors and develop your added value proposition. 

You can work on how to present your USP to your target audience. For instance, including emotions and building connections might be a good idea. Coca-cola has been winning over thousands of people thanks to its focus on fostering the idea of family and family gatherings. 

Fine-tune your USP as you go, but keep it consistent and relatable. 

Determine your channels

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Choosing the best marketing channel will come down to your target audience and market. 

Make sure you pick your customers' favorite channels, such as WhatsApp. Well, that might be biased, but the numbers still confirm it! The app is used by more than 2 billion people worldwide. Better yet, who doesn’t like a spam-free and ads-free messaging channel?

Social media presence is crucial, given that all demographics now use at least two apps. 

Bottom line, analyze your market, decide which channels will get you more visibility, and start with a few. Don’t scatter your efforts, especially if you are taking off with a small crew. 

The second phase of marketing: during the process

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Suppose you outlined your marketing message and defined your audience. Now you are producing marketing content. Now it’s time to create desire and nudge your leads into buying. 

During this phase, you must still take the necessary steps to ensure your efforts are on the right track. 

Generate leads

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At this point, your goal is to generate leads through a comprehensive and holistic marketing plan. Whether through inbound or outbound marketing, you need to reach as many targeted people as possible and create a significant database of prospects.

Not all people who answer your calls or message you at this stage are affirmative buyers. Don’t get frustrated if you don’t achieve any sales just yet. 

Qualify and nurture leads

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70% or more of those who respond to your marketing message will not likely buy. That’s why you must prepare a qualification process. Qualification involves assessing the potential of leads based on their level of interest, fit with your target audience, and readiness to purchase. By identifying qualified leads, you can prioritize your resources and focus on those most likely to convert. 

Nurturing leads involves building relationships and providing valuable information and content to guide them through the buyer's journey. By consistently engaging and addressing their needs, you can establish trust, position your brand as a trusted advisor, and increase the likelihood of conversion. 

Conversational marketing is of critical need at this point. And WhatsApp is a suitable channel to create personalized experiences and connect with your prospects privately. 

Sales Conversion 

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Conversion is the final step in your marketing funnel; it signifies the success of your marketing efforts, nurturing strategies, and follow-ups. 

By continuously optimizing sales funnels, streamlining the purchasing process, and offering exceptional customer support, you can maximize your sales conversion rates, drive revenue growth, and achieve long-term success in a competitive marketplace.

The third phase of marketing: after conversion

Offer a top-notch customer experience

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After-sales is a crucial stage in the customer journey. That’s when your real profit begins to pour in. Fostering customer satisfaction, loyalty, and positive word-of-mouth will ultimately lead to significant lifetime value to cover your acquisition cost. 

You must go beyond the transactional aspect and ensure customers feel supported, valued, and delighted with their purchases. Timely and effective customer support is essential in addressing any issues or concerns that may arise post-purchase. Providing personalized and proactive communication, offering additional resources or assistance, and seeking feedback to improve future experiences all contribute to a positive after-sales experience and guide you on the right track to retaining customers. 

Create brand ambassadors

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The final step is absolutely critical; achieving success in creating brand ambassadors ensures the ultimate triumph of your marketing endeavors and secures a continuous stream of free marketing for your products in the future.

Creating brand ambassadors is a powerful marketing strategy that leverages the enthusiasm and satisfaction of existing customers. When customers have a positive experience with a brand, they become natural advocates who willingly promote and recommend the brand to others. These ambassadors will amplify the reach and impact of your brand's marketing efforts. 

For example, implementing referral programs and incentives can motivate customers to refer friends and family, resulting in a network of loyal customers and a steady surge of new, qualified leads.