Why is it important to market your business?

Why is it important to market your business?

If you’re starting out in business, or even if you’re an experienced entrepreneur, you always need to remember the importance of marketing in your professional life. SEO Company Liverpool understands just how important marketing is for a business.

Marketing is defined by the American Marketing Association as “the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large”.

How to understand that definition

In short, that means you need to tell potential customers what you’re offering and why they should buy from you. What is the value you create?

In this blog from Blue Whale Media, the SEO company Liverpool, we’ll introduce you to some basic marketing concepts. They’ll help you grasp the essential nature of marketing and act as a refresher to those who already skilled in the art of selling their products.

The marketing funnel

One of the principles of promotion is the concept of a marketing funnel. What is a marketing funnel? In essence, it’s the personal journey that a customer goes on – from initially discovering your product or service to actually choosing to buy it.

There are different marketing funnels out there. But for the purposes of this article from web design company Liverpool we’d like to choose one from copywriter and marketing expert, Jackie Barrie. In her book The Little Fish Guide To DIY Marketing she says the stages are as follows:

  • unaware
  • aware
  • interested
  • customer
  • repeat customer
  • advocate

The challenge any business owner faces is to find customers and take them from being “unaware” to becoming – in an ideal world – an “advocate”.

At SEO company Liverpool, we feel that people become advocates when they have positive experiences at reasonable rates.

Let’s imagine, for instance, that you have a buy train ticket at a reduced price and you then have a quick and pleasant journey. If that happens, you’ll probably have a desire to tell a friend all about your good deal. So, you’ll become an “advocate”. The chances are you’ll also become a “repeat customer”.

It’s called a funnel because there are many people at the start of the process, but the numbers gradually reduce as you go through the stages. So, not everyone who becomes a customer will become an advocate, for instance.

Realise the benefits of inbound marketing

Naturally, there are many ways to make people aware of your business. Traditional advertising – such as TV or radio adverts or printed flyers – is known as outbound marketing because you are getting your message “out” to consumers.

But inbound marketing draws people “in” via different outlets, such as social media, blogs or newsletters, for instance. This is where our web design company Liverpool can help you, by creating a bespoke digital marketing strategy that perfectly fits your area of expertise.

The term “inbound marketing” was coined by the American developer of software and marketing products HubSpot in 2006. In a similar way to the marketing funnel above, they created a strategy that consisted of four main stages: attract (through blogs, for instance); convert (with calls to action); close (and create a customer); and delight (with content that impresses your customer).

Contact SEO company Liverpool

Blue Whale Media specialises in all aspects of digital marketing – from highly functional website design to engaging social media campaigns, from clever SEO solutions to multifaceted content creation. Call us today on 01925 552050 or fill in the form below.

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