Marketing and Your Business are One!

By Stanley El

As I continue to support marketing for small and local businesses, I also continue to hear business owners say they don’t need marketing. It is obvious that they don’t fully understand what marketing is. There are several viewpoints. Some business owners feel marketing is selling — when a person brings in a product or knocks on your door to try to sway you with a lot of fast talk and fancy gimmicks. Others feel marketing is advertising. There are some who believe marketing is some kind of gift item given away to try to get customers. One of the biggest is the multilevel selling. This where you buy into an organization’s product and sell it through other people. You make money from everything sold by those recruited by or through you.

With all the different views of marketing, I feel that a clear explanation must be given. And repeated. Marketing, as defined by certain professionals and educators, is the process of getting and keeping customers. Should you ever take a course in marketing, you’ll learn that marketing involves the four Ps, which are Product, Promotion, Price, and Place. We won’t get into a long explanation of the four Ps, but I will ask you to consider them.

You must have a product or service to sell in which you make a profit. Of course, to make a profit, price is important. Price is very important to selling your product. Unfortunately, having a good product and price that are appealing is not enough. People must know about your product and price. They need to understand the value of what you offer and be convinced to buy from you. In short, you have to promote your business’ products and services.

If you have a store front, it promotes your business. If you’re in the yellow pages, your business is promoted. Even word-of-mouth is a way of promoting your business.

That covers three of the four Ps. The last one is place. This is very simple. You must have a place or way for people to see, compare, and buy your product or service. You either go to them or they come to you. Every means of transportation and communication is used daily to conduct business. It does not matter what kind of business you have or want to have, the four Ps are a part of it.

It should be obvious how the four Ps of marketing tie in to “getting and keeping customers.” Good product and prices, effective promotion, and easy access to your products and services are crucial to business. It does not matter what business you are in– retail, service, manufacturing, or wholesale.

Marketing is your business, like it or not. You need to accept that and then learn how to improve it. What does it mean to improve your products or services, prices, promotion, or delivery? It means serving and providing value to customers and potential customers. It means that “Marketing is ultimately service!” It means you have a choice. You can see your business and marketing as something separate from each other, or you can see them as one. Accept them as one and know that marketing has only one purpose and that is to “build business.”

Republished from the newspaper column “Building Business”