Every business needs to understand the 5 main areas of marketing to truly become successful.

Marketing can be a daunting subject for anyone to understand, let alone a new business owner. With so many areas to cover and an ever-changing environment, it can be tough to know where to begin. To help new, and existing, business owners understand the main themes that they need to know to use marketing successfully I have compiled a simple blog explaining the “5 things I learnt about marketing that every business owner needs to know.” Many of these areas were learnt at business school and with the help of amazing online resources each of these 5 things are explained, simply, below for ease of developing an understanding of marketing, to aid your business’s success.

1. Understand the 6 main types of business marketing

• • Direct Response Marketing

Direct response marketing is described by Smarty Ads as a sales technique designed to evoke an on-the-spot response and encourage a prospective customer to take action by opting into the advertiser’s offer. Unlike other marketing types, the direct response method requires very minimal waiting time to see measurable results. Marketers are able to view performance from the moment the campaign is launched. 

• • Inbound Marketing 

Marketo describes Inbound marketing is a strategy that utilizes many forms of pull marketing such as content marketing, blogs, events, SEO, social media and more. This is to create brand awareness and help to attract new consumers. This is in contrast to outbound marketing, where marketers attempt to find customers, inbound marketing gains the attention of consumers and makes the business easy to be located.

• • Outbound Marketing 

As described by Wordstream, outbound marketing refers to any kind of marketing where a business initiates the conversation and sends its message out to consumers. Examples of this include more traditional forms of marketing and advertising such as TV commercials, radio ads, print advertisements, outbound sales calls (AKA “cold calls”), and email spam.

• • Content Marketing

Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on developing and providing useful, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clear segment of consumers and, ultimately, to drive profitable consumer actions. 

• • Pay-Per-Click Marketing

As explained by Search Engine Journal, pay-per-click marketing (PPC) is an advertising technique that lets marketers place ads on an ad platform and pay the host of that platform every time their ad is clicked. The goal of a PPC ad is to lead the person viewing it to click through to the advertiser’s website or app, where that visitor can complete an action, such as purchasing a product. 

• • Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is simply described by Neil Patel as the process of creating content that you have tailored to the context of each individual social media platform in order to drive user engagement and sharing. 

2. Understand Target Markets and Buyer Personas

• • Target market

A target market is a group of consumers or organizations most inclined to purchase a business’s products or services. As those consumers are likely to want or need a company’s offerings, it makes the most sense for the business to focus its marketing efforts on reaching them. Marketing to these buyers is the most effective and efficient approach.

• • Buyer persona

A buyer persona is, according to HubSpot, a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer. It’s based on market research, actual data about your existing customers, and a few educated assumptions. It helps you to understand and relate to an audience that you want to market your products and services to. Buyer personas are situated at the heart of any marketing strategy, and throughout every part of the Inbound process. 

Hit your target market!

3. Develop Marketing Budgets

Allocating funds for a marketing plan is daunting, but it’s essential for a business’s success. Below are the 6 steps, as devised by OutBound Engine, that you need to understand in order to create a successful marketing budget for your business. 

• Step 1: Look at the Big Picture
• Step 2: Outline Your Sales Funnel
• Step 3: List Your Operational Costs
• Step 4: Set Goals
• Step 5: Scope Out the Competition

Sales Funnel

4. Utilise Visuals and Branding

Visual marketing is the technique of using photos, graphics, videos, and other visual content to market a product or service. Businesses in every industry can benefit from using visual content in their marketing. Using visual branding, such as images, graphics, videos, across your marketing helps consumers remember information about your brand. Below are some statistics from Tinuiti that show just how powerful visual marketing can be:

1. When consumers process information paired with relevant images, they retain 65% of that information three days later.
2. 93% of human communication is visual. 
3. People are 80% more likely to read content if it’s paired with colourful visuals.
4. Visual content is 40x more likely to be shared across social media.
5. Presentations with visual aides are 43% more persuasive.

Utilize your branding!

5. Retention Matters

The customer retention definition in marketing is “the process of engaging existing customers to continue buying products or services from your business.” as defined by CrazyEgg. The best customer retention techniques allow you to build long relationships with consumers who will essentially become loyal to your brand. This could lead to them spreading the word of your brand to their peers, which can turn them into brand ambassadors. It is easier and less expensive to retain customers than to acquire them, making this an important marketing tool. The most recent statistics indicate that you’ll spend five times less money on customer retention than you will on acquiring new consumers. 

If you understand and use these 5 marketing areas it is likely to aid the success of your business. Check out our other blog posts for more ideas and information on how to help your brand!
And as always, if you have any questions, pop them in the comments below for the team to answer!

The post 5 things I learnt about marketing that every business owner needs to know. appeared first on Rocket Fuel Design.

As a child, I was no different from others in wanting to be a vet or something that is WAY harder than you believe as a child. I then spent most of my teenage years set on being an Interior Designer, that did not pan out the way I always dreamt of. Now here I am, my 3rd year out of high school with the intention of becoming a Social Media Marketer. This is the story of how I arrived here.

My university experience has been anything but straight forward, through this experience I have learnt many things, positive and negative. But I am coming into my last year with knowledge, strength and durability because of it.

I began my University experience at Victoria University of Wellington studying a Bachelor of Design, I had moved from Palmerston North to Wellington to pursue this degree as it is not available at Massey University in Palmerston North. The move was a big deal for me as I had resided in Palmerston North with my immediate family my entire life, that in itself was a huge learning curve. 

My First Year At University

A Bachelor of Design at Victoria University of Wellington requires you do 4 compulsory first-year papers before you can move on and specialise in your second year.

These papers, in summary, were drawing, graphic design, the theory of design and hard materials design. The only paper that I had a good grasp on before studying was the theory paper as that was the area I wanted to specialise in. I felt that I was not going to be creative enough to pass the other courses. To my surprise I quickly realised I was far more creative then I originally believed.

I suspect the many years of structured NCEA courses gave me very little free reign in being creative and now I had the opportunity to be as creative as I wished and created all that I wished. 

Practically, I learnt how to use various Adobe software’s different drawings techniques and how to operate skill saws and various other machinery that you would find in a wood workshop. I also learnt how to confidently and successfully present my design work to a small group and lecturers, this was extremely intimidating for me as I have always struggled with confidence and having something I created be critiqued in front of my peers was something of a nightmare to me.

I knew that I had to present to pass so it was just another learning curve I had to face and with each presentation, I gained confidence. 

Moving Home

At the end of 2018, I decided that I much preferred Palmerston North as a place to live whilst studying and also decided that I did not want to pursue design as a career but rather as a hobby. I had been doing a few different business papers at Victoria University of Wellington, including marketing. I decided that a Bachelor of Business majoring in Marketing was a more viable and enjoyable career option for me, an option that still gives me the opportunity to be creative as well as academic in my work. 

Looking back I believe the main things I learnt outside of my discipline were about myself. I learnt that I could do anything I put my mind to and no one was actually there to judge me as I believed. I also learnt that the world is a lot bigger and a lot scarier than you imagine it to be whilst you are in the education system where you, often, do not have a chance to think or act for yourself but also that we are capable of fitting into that world with just a little push and determination.

Lastly, I learnt that Palmerston North is not as bad as I once thought it to be in high school, it is actually remarkably tranquil and I’m glad about the decision I made to come back.

Back To Business

Going into my second year at Massey University in Palmerston North was again a big learning curve as I had to navigate a completely different University whilst studying a different degree.

As I began studying business I struggled with the fact that I had changed degrees from something so full of practical assessments and creativity back to rigid compulsory business papers that I had no interest in whatsoever. These included finance, accounting and economics which I initially believed I would struggle with as I had not done maths or anything of the sort for about 3 years, but I once again proved to myself that I am more capable than I originally thought. 

Although I had to complete these papers I also began my second year marketing papers which were all around different areas of marketing, such as marketing research, social media marketing and consumer behaviour, which helped me to decide what I was wanting to specialise in.

I ended up learning a lot over this year in terms of disciplines as I was doing such a wide variety of papers, copious things that I have already abandoned but also copious things that interested me and stuck in my mind. Along with disciplinary learning, the main thing that unearthed and learnt was what I wanted to pursue as a career in a more specialised minor, which is Social Media Marketing.

Why I Made My Decision

I chose Social Media Marketing because of the modern, creative and open discipline it is. It gives me the opportunity to be creative and expressive whilst also providing a stable and intellectual element, the best of both worlds. Along with that, I also grew up with social media and it’s development into the platforms we know and trust today such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. I have seen them evolve into the perfect marketing tools that they now exist as and can not what to see how they even further develop. 

All of the various changes for me were stressful and at times a nuisance as I have always been organised and rigid in my routine and plans, but it definitely taught me to be more flexible and understanding of myself. Thankfully for me many of my first-year design courses transferred over to Massey as electives so that, with the help of a summer paper, I was not put any time behind my original graduation point. All in all, I learnt equally as much in terms of disciplinary knowledge as I did about myself, my needs, my wants and my future path.

Choosing My Internship

I chose to do an internship through Massey University as it was far too valuable of an opportunity to pass up. Getting my foot in the door and experiencing a professional environment will give me that little push I need to enter the corporate environment myself after my studies. Being able to gain professional experience in the area of expertise I want to explore is an opportunity to figure out if Marketing is something I want to do in the long haul, and if so gives me the tools to be able to enter a job and know more about this area, practically, than other graduates. 

Along with giving me a boost on my CV I know that I will also gain experience and skills in many areas as Rocket Fuel Design, involves itself in many different areas of expertise, such as design, marketing, photography, website creation, etc.

Rocket Fuel Design was the organisation that I wanted to do my internship with as all of these areas are of great interest to me and most of these areas I have knowledge in that I would like to further expand.

Lainey is the most amazing “host” I could have asked for and her story of starting Rocket Fuel Design is as inspiring as it gets. I hope that one day, as my story continues, I too will be able to help and inspire.

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