Small business owners tend to confuse marketing and advertising as the same thing. Advertising is a very important component of marketing but it is not the same. Marketing is the process of arousing customer interest in products and services. Marketing generates the strategy that supports sales techniques, business communication and business development. Marketing is the whole package and advertising is one component.
Advertising is an important element of the marketing strategy and probably the most expensive. Advertising consists of sending messages about a company, its products and services. Advertising also includes putting together a number of methods to target viewers and interest them in becoming customers. Advertising includes placing ads, deciding which media to use, the frequency and the time the ad will run. Different types of media are used to distribute the ads. TV, direct mail, newspaper, Internet, emails, radio, magazines, text messages, flyers, billboards, etc. They are among the different media used to distribute advertisements. Different media for different businesses, not all media are for everyone.
Advertising is simply one part of the marketing mix. The other parts include product research, product design, media planning, public relations, product pricing, customer satisfaction, customer support, and the list goes on and on. All of these elements work independently, but they all work to achieve the goals and objectives set by the company, sell products or services, and build reputation in the marketplace. Advertising alone will not produce results and copying what others are doing will certainly fail. What works for some doesn’t necessarily mean it will work for others.
Advertising is not effective if proper research has not been followed. Research is the understanding of customer needs and expectations. Product design comes next and can be time consuming. Followed by advertising and sales. Marketing puts everything together while creating strategies to succeed.
Advertising can become very expensive and worthless if it is not done correctly and important steps are not followed. Branding is important, but a logo does not guarantee sales, a logo represents the values and reputation of a company and it takes time to build and be recognized. Small business owners must first invest time and money in getting to know their customers, their expectations, and educating them. After getting to know your customers and aggressively building a database, they must engage in advertising and promoting your products and services. In this way, a complete marketing campaign will be successful and will generate sales.
