Marketing

"Breakthroughs come from an instinctive judgement of what customers might want if they knew to think about it." --Andrew Grove, Intel

"Advertising is salesmanship. The only purpose of advertising is to make sales." -- Claude C. Hopkins

A retinue of dependable customers has always been a firm's greatest asset. The sage observation, "It is better to own a market than a plant," was once only a catch phrase to many businesses - more preached than practiced or understood. Except in times of serious depression, it was always possible to sell harder, improve performance, or cut price. Management's word to salesmen and distributors was, "We'll make It - you sell it." Today the successful business leader says, "What does the market want that we can make and market? How can we best please them with both product and service? How can we get that market to be ours - at least a share of it?"

Marketing is something that every business owner does, even if he or she doesn’t call it that. Many people consider marketing to be promotion, advertising and all the selling techniques used to get someone to buy a product. However marketing is much more.

It’s important to understand that marketing is not the same thing as advertising, selling or promoting. Those are separate tasks. Advertising, selling and promoting are essentially the implementation of your marketing plan. That is, once you have identified your customer prospects and determined how best to reach and serve them, you then have to go out and make it happen.

A marketing approach to business begins with the customer’s needs and involves designing the entire business around fulfilling those needs.

One great need of small business managers is to understand and develop marketing programs for their products and services. Long term small business success depends on the ability to maintain a strong body of satisfied customers while continually increasing this body with new customers. Modern marketing programs build around the marketing concept, which directs managers to focus their efforts on identifying, satisfying, and following up the customer's needs - all at a profit.

One mistake many new business make is slowing up on their marketing efforts each time they get busy with work. While getting new business is exciting and stressful for all of us, it is especially so for new business owners. One thing you don't want to do is neglect your marketing. Before you know it, your current business will slow down, and you'll be left with no incoming business.

So, in the midst of being busy with work, how do you fit in time for marketing? Be sure to set aside some time to market your business everyday. From making a sales call, to passing out your business card, to sending out direct mail - every little thing helps, but you must set aside the time to do it. It may be hard, because your mind may wander to the business at hand, but you'll thank yourself later!