What is the whole purpose of marketing? Is it telling people about your product or service? (Advertising) Or is it convincing people they need to buy your product? (Story telling)

Advertising is a very important part of marketing, but marketing isn’t just creating the nicest flyer you can possible conjure up and sharing or posting it to hundreds of thousands of people hoping to get a hit. Marketing is doing research to see exactly who your audience for said product is. What they probably do in life, who they are, who they hang out with.

Marketing is knowing your perfect audience aren’t just corporate professionals, but they are parents, they live in a certain income area, they drive cars that the bank still own, they pay home loans and have dogs and cats…

Marketing is knowing what the end user is all about, then fitting that into your content (adverts) to draw in their attention to the service or product you are offering them.

Marketing is highlighting a problem that your audience deals with, and offering them a hard-to-resist, must have solution.

Let’s take an example, shall we?

I have a craft store owner client. Who is her target market?

After doing some research in her area, (by means of joining Facebook community groups) and asking the wise Google about things to do in a 5km radius around her shop and checking out her competition we came to a conclusion…

Her target audience are mostly female and the majority of these females are mothers.

Their problem that we focus on: Kids need to be entertained, have school projects that need certain craft store supplies and some of these moms are unemployed and need to supplement the home’s income.

Our solution: The craft store owner can now adapt her stock to fit the needs of her target audience at an AFFORDABLE price. (She now doesn’t stock items that won’t sell, and sells more of the items that she does have so she can move more stock quicker = She can sell at a better price) Behind the scenes we decide on and update the Facebook business page with suited DIY ideas on how one can possibly earn an additional income through using the craft store (be it through Macramé, paint pouring etc)

This is huge for engagement, and if you know anything about FB page engagement you will understand why this is important. We also regularly update the page with ideas to keep the kids entertained, then we add our products to the comments section of the post. These are the products that they will need to do the mentioned art project.

Behind the scenes we (as the business’s Facebook business page) are also active on the local community Facebook groups. We comment, congratulate, compliment and share ideas with other group members, which in turns growths the trust in our client’s business (cares about the community) and helps with brand awareness.

Thus, in conclusion, we’ve created the need, identified the problem and offered a solution and we’ve established our client as a trusted community business.

Marketing thus creates AND satisfies a need.

Marketing is identifying the value that your product or service offers to satisfy the end user’s need or want. Good marketing informs the client about a product and motivates them to take the steps to learning more about the product or service and then to do the actual purchase. The purchaser then exchanges monetary value for the value your product offers in satisfying their need.

Are you a new business owner and you would like to do this for your small business?

Download the “Who is my ideal client worksheet” to help you identify your target audience.