Marketing Basics 101
Everyone with a business has probably heard of marketing, but might not be sure it is for them or what exactly it does. If you haven’t already started marketing then it is good to ask yourself, “why should I use marketing?” Think of marketing as developing your business and increasing the exposure of your product or service. It can build a strong reputation for your brand identity and reach consumers with brand awareness. In this article Citypeak Marketing will discuss why marketing is beneficial, the increase in popularity, and what makes agencies different.
How Marketing Can Help Your Business
The term marketing is often used vaguely and can be confused with sales. As a business owner you may wonder if marketing applies to you, and how to use it. Marketing is essentially the ability to gain sales by having customers come to you as warm leads. This allows your business to not rely on difficult sales strategies such as cold-calling, door-to-door, and buying leads. Marketing will alleviate your sales methods but shouldn't replace it. It is helpful to use frugal finance to get tips on how to save on costs and put it towards your business expenses to grow.
Hiring a marketing agency to handle the marketing tasks is very a smart move. You will be able to hire an entire team of professionals that focus specifically on marketing. This would be cheaper than hiring a full-time employee specifically for marketing. It would also bring more effective results and strategies than having a current employee perform tasks. If you’re a small business then you’re probably concerned about your current living expenses, so make sure to review your costs to determine your budget.
Gain Market Share
Another benefit of marketing for your business is to gain market share in your industry. Competition has become fierce. Businesses must work extra hard to not be pushed out by the corporate giants. For example, the McDonald's drive thru is consistently busy. Whereas the parking lot of a fresh local burger joint right next door is scarce. This is due to marketing. McDonald's brand awareness has become so high that people have become accustomed to eating there, despite its poor quality. The large corporations know how powerful marketing is and are using it to their advantage. It is important for businesses to recognize this and not feel defeated but combat it with marketing from our agency. Make sure to choose an agency like Citypeak Marketing who has experience working in these large corporations. We know what strategies they use and offer our digital marketing services at the lowest agency rates.
Lastly, using marketing strategies can inspire consumers to want your product or service even if they hadn’t been considering you. People often do not know what they want until they see it. By targeting demographics with marketing, your business can gain clients that might be interested. For example, let's say you own a fencing company. A simple radio ad could inspire consumers who hadn't considered getting a fence before, realize they could use it and contact your business. Marketing for your business comes down to building a strategy for your brand that develops over time. It is not often an immediate effect but putting work in now with a reliable agency can help you grow into a major success that could expand to become as popular as McDonald's. It is critical to use the strategies the big corps are using and not just do business as usual. Get the sales you deserve!
Boost in Popularity
The history of marketing goes back 1000 years, but not until the last 100 years was it studied in universities. Before the Digital Age, marketing mainly consisted of advertising strategies such as a logo, slogan, radio, billboard, and magazine ads. Now the internet age has dawned digital marketing which has created marketing methods that use websites, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), digital advertisements, and even social media.
Businesses of every industry see marketing as an opportunity to gain sales and grow. The main reason marketing has become so popular recently is from the excellent benefits it provides. You can find great marketing tips online, and then when your ready you can confidently work with a professional marketing agency to do the difficult jobs. The Internet has played a big role in this by advancing traditional marketing methods. It’s important to stay up to date with these changes and promote your business. However, the marketing strategies each business uses depends on the industry and goals. Finding an expert agency like Citypeak Marketing, who creates unique marketing plans for clients is a great solution for your business growth. These plans develop and implement proven to convert strategies that will benefit your company the quickest and most effective.
Know what services you’re getting
It is important to know how to differentiate marketing agencies and what services they offer. Conduct some brief research on which marketing tools your business could benefit from. These days an abundance of marketing agencies exist, but they will only offer a small portion of the marketing services available. If your company needs a wide range of services, then you’ll want a full-service agency like Citypeak Marketing. We help clients with any marketing they want to do even if it’s not listed in our packages. The larger agencies often “specialize” in just a few things like social media but end up doing a poor job.
In our experience, we've built posts on Facebook to an average 400 views per post. Then to give Citypeak Marketing more time managing advertisements and analytics the client outsourced social media to one of the biggest agencies in the area. This ended up ruining the hard work we had done. The social media presence plummeted to just 10 average views per post! The “specialized” company had inadequate graphics design, empty content, but prices. Bigger is not always better.
Choose an Agency You Can Trust
It is very difficult to know what agencies are legitimate and which ones just want to take your money. Anyone can start an agency even with no experience or education in marketing. Some agencies are overseas can adversely affect your results in The United States. Such as the English in England is different from English in the United States. This can negatively affect your marketing due to a language barrier and not knowing the culture. Make sure to do some initial research on the agency to see if they’re trustworthy and open about pricing and services.
Reviews are a great way to learn about an agency’s reputation, which can be found on Yelp, Facebook, and Google. Next take a quick look on LinkedIn to see if their employees have marketing and professional experience from reputable companies. Lastly, always check out their website to make sure services are clearly outlined, pricing information is easily available, and if the terms are in the footer. Agencies to avoid don’t show their terms and vaguely define their services. Additionally, avoid agencies who require a lengthy “quote” process just to receive a price tag that is often outrageously high. This is a red flag and shows dishonesty by not disclosing basic important information until you work for it. At Citypeak Marketing we feature our terms clearly in the footer and offer open and fair pricing for our packages. Going a step further we even give clients the ability to adjust their packages to stay within their budget - so price is never an issue!
Free Consultation
If you’re interested in marketing services, then go ahead and reach out to us for a free consultation. Citypeak Marketing offers 3 packages and a la cart prices with month-to-month plans so you’re never locked in. Simply schedule your Free Marketing Proposal to discuss your small business marketing needs.