04/01/2021
Now unto marketing... If you want to succeed in business this new year read this!
Marketing is a tree with many branches. It is a set of activities ranging from knowing your customers, positioning your products and services to meet suit them, getting the product/ service to reach them, leading them to sales, delivering your promise, turning them into loyal customers and keeping them.
As complex as marketing might seem, I've found out that there are two most important arms to it. Number one branding, and number two selling.
Most business owners make the error of thinking sales is separate from marketing. Yes, for the start its alright to think them differently but to succeed in the market you have to see them as one.
There are differences between the approaches of a sales person and a marketer, but you need both.
Marketing is about creating a brand and selling. YOUR BRAND IS WHAT YOU WANT TO BE KNOWN FOR, simple. Everybody can be selling wigs but everybody should not just be selling wigs, what differentiates your wig from others is your brand. The PROCESS of PREACHING this difference is called BRANDING. Brand is what people stick to. It's your message, it's your story, it's what your business stands for.
You must be able to draw people to your brand and also take the brand to people, that's one difference between a marketer and a salesperson. You're both remember?
Selling on the other hand involves techniques. You have to sell your brand to make profit. Selling and marketing as a whole has been on constant change for decades. Why? Because the market which is the root of marketing has been changing. There are different sales techniques out there, but I've found out some amazing factors that compels sales.
Gone are those days people uses manipulations and mind control tricks to get people to buy. Today's customers are different, they need to see and experience RESULTS first before committing their penny to you. So I strongly believe that the current winning technique is RESULT-BASED selling. Tell them a story of someone's who has their need, show them how your product /service solved the person's problem, promise they would experience the same, then tell them to buy within a specific period of time after which the product /service or a major benefit will be withdrawn.
There are different paths to selling but all are rooted in the psychology and emotion of humans. Although human changes, there are some mindset and behaviors that doesn't change, that's what makes us still humans.
Building solid marketing takes years, financial investments and efforts. Focus on your branding, create one now if you haven't. Learn more about the psychology behind selling to your specific market. Keep at your marketing campaigns, continue to test what works and what doesn't.
Wishing you a prosperous new year.
