By Ridge Yusuf
To survive in today’s competition, every business – big, medium, or small – need to promote itself. It must make people know the products and services offered. Availability of various media sources such as television, radio, printing, outdoor media, internet, etc., offers many opportunities to promote themselves with little effort. Many businesses have understood the importance of marketing and advertising. Businesses in the US spent around $ 144 billion in marketing and advertising in 2011. Globally, it was $ 498 billion.
Marketing and ads are not the same
Marketing and advertising are two unique concepts that are important for every business to succeed. Many people incorrectly assume that they are the same. But, they don’t. Marketing involves various activities such as identifying market targets, needs and their requirements; New product development, promotion, building brand images, etc. Advertising, on the other hand, is one of the marketing activities. This is a kind of promotion to make consumers know the products / services available under the brand.
In this article, we will discuss how marketing and advertising helps business.
• Marketing defines market targets: target markets or target customers is a group of people who are more likely to buy products / services offered by your business. Unless the business identifies the target market, it cannot design an advertising strategy that is adjusted to serve potential consumers. Marketing helps business effectively identify their target market. Marketing involves research to identify the people you want to sell products and people who need your product.
• Identify customer needs: It is important to continue to monitor and produce products that are in accordance with your target group requirements. Marketing does this appropriately. It identifies customer requirements by conducting various polls, campaigns and research, which allows businesses to produce products that are in accordance with the needs and desires of consumers.
• Build brand image: a good reputation makes the company stand out from the others. Because marketing allows companies to produce products according to customer demand, and help them do various programs to promote their brands and products, a kind of brand image will be established among the people.
• Advertising helps publish company products and services: While marketing involves all back-end operations such as research, collecting opinions, identifying needs and requirements and so on, advertising is associated with publishing brands to consumers. This creates awareness of brands and products / services offered by it among people and thus makes famous brands between target markets.
In addition to creating brand awareness, effective advertising does have the power to convince the public to buy products. Various of these advertising includes non-electronic media such as newspapers, brochures, journals, magazines, banners, posters, etc., and electronic media such as television, radio, etc.
• Distinguish company products from other people’s products: Another advantage of advertising is that it gives the company the opportunity to distinguish its products from its competing products. Many of us may have seen advertisements that compare the effectiveness of their products with their competitors. Popular examples are advertising consumer products, which show product comparisons. This kind of promotion helps people understand the specialization of your brand / product.
• Increase your presence on the market: Advertising campaigns constantly remind potential customers about their brands and products.
