A Study of Marketing Basics Using King Solomon’s Principles
When we ponder the world of marketing, we will discover that there are several concepts and misconceptions that need to be addresses. The basic definition of marketing describes the various tasks that determine your continuing efforts to meet the needs of your customers and, of course, that you are getting a valuable return for your efforts. One consistent misconceptions of marketing is that marketing only concerns your advertising your product or service. Though marketing your product is a serious consideration, it is only one component in the marketing process.
We can define the essence of marketing as ‘understanding your customers’ needs and developing a plan that addresses those needs.’ By understanding marketing in this way, a business owner who has a desire to ‘grow’ his business can set the proper goals.
The most effective way to grow or expand a business is to focus on ‘organic growth.’ In order to understand ‘organic growth’, we need to realize that a business is a living organism. We can either let it fend for itself or we can determine what it needs to help it grow. By determining what the business needs we can thus determine what we need to do to make it thrive.
We should look at two basic components of marketing in order to get a better idea of the things that we need to create a successful business. The first component of marketing that we need to consider is ‘developing a marketing plan.’ The second component is the ‘ongoing promotion.’ One mistake that many business owners make is to create a product or service and immediately jump into an advertising campaign. When we define these two basic components, you’ll understand why this mistake can be a disappointing and costly one.
Developing a ‘marketing plan’ or ‘marketing strategy’ is essential to the well being of a business. The first step in creating a marketing plan is to do a little research and analysis. Don’t slap yourself on the forehead in exasperation. This is not as difficult as the name implies. It may take a little time but is well worth every minute.
To help us get started, let’s begin by looking at a simplified explanation of ‘marketing analysis.’ We should apply two of Solomon’s Keys to Success at this point.
Proverbs 1:5 (NASB) “A wise man will hear and increase in learning, and a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel,” Wise counsel can be found in many forms. We should also remember, for those of us who think we know best, “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man is he who listens to counsel.” Proverbs 12:15 (NASB) In a nutshell marketing analysis involves the following:
What must we do in ‘marketing analysis’?
1.) Discover which groups of potential customers (or markets) there are,
2.) Determining our ‘target market’ or which groups of customers that we prefer to serve,
3.) Learning the needs of our target market,
4.) Choosing the best products or services that might meet the needs of our target market,
5.) Determining how our potential customers might use our products and services,
6.) Keep track of your competitors’ activities,
7.) Determining the pricing formula that we should use and
8.) Deciding how we should distribute our products and services to our target markets.
There are a number of researching your target market that can be used to discover information about markets, target markets and their needs, as well as the actions that your competitors are trying, etc. The Internet has given us a great instrument for this type of research. A little refined searching on the major search engines will reveal many sources of specific information. You must remember to target your searches. Get specific!
After having developed our marketing plan, we should look at our plan for ‘ongoing promotions.’ Our plan for ongoing promotion will include advertising, public relations, sales and customer service to name a few. These terms (advertising, marketing, promotion, public relations and publicity, and sales) can easily become confusing. These are terms that are often used interchangeably. However, they refer to different but similar activities.
Look at a list of simplified definition of each term.
1.) Advertising — effectively presenting a product (or service) to potential and current customers. Advertising must be focused on one particular product or service. This demonstrates that an advertising plan for one particular product or service might not work for another product or service. Advertising is done with signs, brochures, commercials, direct mailings or e-mail messages, personal contact, website banners, etc.
2.) Promotion – keeping our product in the minds of our customer (product recognition). The ongoing activities of advertising and public relations are often considered aspects of promotions.
3.) Public relations — Public relations is ongoing activities that ensure your product or service has a strong and positive public image.
4.) Publicity — Publicity is public or ‘media’ attention, whether favorable or not. These are the review that others present of your product or service and can include news releases. These are only a few terms that are good to learn.
The health and well being of a business is determined by the extent of diligent study and the application of the success principles that you learn through study. To best become acquainted with your product or service or customers or competitors, a sincere determination to be as diligent as possible is essentail.
Remember these principles in Solomon’s Proverbs to help you develop a growing and successful business.
Proverbs 10:4 (NASB) “Poor is he who works with a negligent hand, but the hand of the diligent makes rich.”
Proverbs 12:24 (NLT) “Work hard and become a leader; be lazy and become a slave.”
Proverbs 13:4 (NLT) “The Lazy people want much but get little, but those who work hard will prosper”
Proverbs 21:5 (NLT) “Good planning and hard work lead to prosperity, but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty”
Write this last Proverb over and over until it is embedded into your memory. It will be a blessing.
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