What is marketing? Selling a product to people who did not think of buying it until they received an offer. Sometimes the purpose of marketing is to create the need for a product.
Good marketing can be very influential. The first iPhone commercial that launched in 2007 produced a catchy tune, a colorful display and the fact that it was on the national television, convinced thousands of people of their need to buy this product.
According to Esther Lopez from Ezine@rticles states that any product, regardless of how good it is, or how well established the brand may seem, needs marketing. Look around you and you’ll see advertisements all over the place. That’s marketing. Your mailbox at home gets plenty of flyers and other unsolicited mail, that’s marketing. Those emails in your inbox trying to sell you odd things, that’s marketing too.
To execute this companies employ a group of marketers that can build creative marketing campaigns. Campaigns can be either in print, media or both.
Print Advertising
Print campaigns include newspaper and magazine advertising. This type of marketing can carry a variety of messages (either brand oriented or direct response) and can be focused on a particular audience based on who reads the publication.
Direct Mail
Although many believe direct mail marketing has seen its best days already passed, there is still some life in this powerful, traditional form of advertising. Direct Mail refers to postcards, brochures and flyers that are sent through the mail and generally contain a direct response call-to-action. Using direct mail means having to purchase some necessities for the campaign, including printing materials, postage and the address lists of the demographic you wish to target.
TV and Radio
Among the most high profile campaigns in the industry, television and radio advertising offer the opportunity to reach the largest number of people in the shortest time frame. Among the disadvantages of these marketing efforts are the potentially high cost and the inability to truly target your demographic with precise accuracy. However, the prestige associated with television advertising can elevate a business in a way no other marketing format can.
Online Marketing
The rising star in the world of marketing is online. The web continues to explode and along with it so do the advertising opportunities. Billions and billions more advertising dollars are spent every year online, as business try to find ways to tap into the Internet user. The most common types of Online Marketing include:
Pay Per Click – bidding on search terms and having the business’ ads appear when the relevant keywords are searched in Google or Yahoo!
Banner Advertising – creating a graphic advertisement and placing it on relevant websites. The ad then takes customers directly to the advertiser’s website
Email Marketing – Using lists of email addresses to deliver content and promotional offers to potential customers
Organic Search – Using search engine optimization (SEO) to rank high on Google and Yahoo! in your given area of business
These days many businesses are abandoning the more traditional, print forms of marketing in favor of reaching out to the online world. As print and direct mail see their numbers decline, more and more businesses are choosing the cost effective, highly targeted marketing options found online.
