Marketing | Do I even need it?
By: Ana Marija Cazin
Tags: Marketing, Customer Engagement, Brand Awareness, Loyalty, Digital Marketing

Is marketing important for my business? Or I can live without it? (source: pexels.com)

To understand an answer to this question, first we should see what questions bother us, when we think about whether we need marketing or not? Do our potential customers know about us? Do they even care for our amazing and fantastic product/service we are offering? Is our service/product useful? We have few clients, but how do we make ourselves visible to potential buyers? Do they know how to use our service/product? How are our customers perceiving us in their minds? There are many other questions that are bothering us but this piece isn’t about questions, it’s about answers. Let’s see what does everybody say, shall we? I’ll use simple references from everyday life for better understanding or at least, how I see it. Just to make it interesting.

Have you heard about us, oh dear customers?

So, how do you propose to sell something if nobody knows about you? In other words, how do you propose to find somebody for life or just a bit of fun, if you don’t go out and meet people? That, in short, is brand awareness. With marketing in every way, digital or analog, we are trying to tell our potential buyers that we exist. As well to appeal to their interest and love for new and shiny things. It’s like when you go out with some friends and you see somebody that makes your heart flutter a little. That’s what brand awareness is trying to do. Through it, marketing is trying to interest potential customers into buying, trying the product/service as well as to imprint themselves into their minds. Also, to educate them to how to use it. Well, we all know how was it our first time, right? It’s something like that. You got to try it to know if you love it, if you know what I mean. 😊

I’m sure everybody is going to love us, spread the word.

By making ourselves known to the world, read market, through different channels of communication, company builds reputation and with it, grows sales. Look it this way. We are all children of social media, we post, share, like and so on. And with it, we build a reputation. Some use more sarcastic tone, some funny, some just chilling one and so on. It gives others a perspective or view of ourselves that we are presenting to world. In other words, by working on project or as being an intern, we get valuable information and, with it, gain reputation for being good workers. Which, in return, gets us a better chance of getting job. Hell, with time, a better paying job. Same thing with marketing. By creating context and stories, we are creating reputation that, in return, increases sales and grows number of loyal customers. We all want to expand or grow, right?

Come back again, we have a lot to offer you!

Loyalty. That’s what is truly important. When you have loyal customers, they will recommend your company or product to others. They will follow you wherever you go. But to do so, you need engagement. It’s way too expensive and physically impossible to tend to every customer you have. However, there is a way. Yeah, you guessed right. It’s social media. It’s a wonderful tool that allows you to communicate with your customers and give them a feeling they are talking face-to-face with you. And with that, you will get to sustain your company because you will have customers that believe in you and love your product. I mean, if you met person once and afterwards you never spoke with her/him again, will you remember her/him? Even if she/he made an impression on you in some way, you probably won’t remember that person after quite some time, until you meet her/him again. Maybe. We do have short memory. My personal problem is that I remember faces, but not names. Why is that? Because I didn’t engage with those people enough to remember them. But for my friends dear to me, I would give up my life. It’s same with company. With marketing, we can engage our customers and give them a chance to part of story. We all love stories, after all. It’s in our blood.

Final words

If you wish to move from a dead spot or grow your business, marketing is your answer. It will be expensive in the beginning, but once you get your customers hooked and keep them that way, you can move the world. Your potential buyers will know about you, where to find you, how to use your product/service, trust you because of your reputation, buy your product/service and recommend them to their friends and families, like your page or read your blog every time you post something new and more. Everybody thinks you don’t need marketing to survive. True, you don’t need it, you need it to thrive and grow. But, if you are fine with walk-ins, and making lots, and lots of phone calls, then sure. Marketing will mean nothing to you. But my question is this. Why do you need to put yourself out there then? Who cares what knowledge or skill set you bring with you? After all, you need to just make a call or send in a CV to get a job, right? Go ahead. Ignore the technology that makes your life easier and reach those who would like to hear what you have to say. Or simply embrace it. Your choice.