I once saw a wise saying in the bathroom stall of a club, “bad marketing is like winking in the dark because you know what you are doing but nobody else does.” I found this quite profound because I always assumed marketing was an easy thing and as long as you did something, anything at all, you would get the results you were looking for.
Business is, in some ways, a precise practice because it has specific parameters in which success is achieved. A business only succeeds if it is meeting a need or solving a problem in the current market. The more the problems it solves, the more successful the business. Similarly, marketing is the same way. In order for marketing to occur and achieve the desired result, it should be carried out in a certain way. This is the reason why marketing companies exist; it is actually not an easy process. It requires expertise.
The difference between a business that actively embraces suitable marketing practices and one that does not is easily evident. Again, it can make the difference between the success and the failure of a business, especially because marketing is an on-going business process. A well prepared and executed marketing strategy can accelerate business growth exponentially.
A bad marketing example is one that I can give from personal experience. When I opened my first business, I thought flyers were the easiest way to market to a mass market, after all, I had seen them in use everywhere. I ignored the advice of my business partner and ordered several flyers made. I personally distributed them and noticed that I got a very limited response. It was not the marketing method that was going to be most effective in reaching my target market. I ended up losing money without attracting any more customers.
There are a number of different ways to get a message out to customers and lately the most popular has been the internet. There have been some companies that have made good use of the internet to reach their customers. A good example is coca cola. They have always consistently worked on their advertising and it has paid off for years. When internet marketing gained in popularity, they were not left behind.
Marketing is an immeasurably important part of a running business. It also partially involves market research because it is important for a business to know what product is viable in the market and who would buy it. It is also good for a business to know how they are going to advertise the product or service to their customers in order to stay in business. The more relevant marketing a business does, the better their chances of success.