Marketing is communication that builds relationships, drives revenue, and accelerates growth.
There are endless marketing channels and tactics. When you break it down though, you are communicating an idea with the goal of getting your audience to take action.
That action could be signing up for your email list. Sometimes, it’s paying you $1 — or $10,000.
Marketing is communicating what you do, creating a connection with the person at the other end of your message, and moving that relationship forward.
Marketing is the process of answering these questions:
Marketing is taking your best educated guess to answer these questions and creating a plan to move forward. At the end of the day, you don’t need a huge budget. You don’t need to have all of this huge production. You need to have a reliable, predictable way to communicate with your audience.
Let’s be real: marketing is important because it generates sales. For a small business that wants to scale, revenue growth is what keeps you up at night. Marketing helps you grow your business.
Great marketing also engages your customers. It not only helps you create that initial connection but also builds long-term, loyal relationships.
The marketing “funnel” refers to the progression that a potential customer goes through as they become more familiar and engaged with your brand. While it’s most common to see this represented as a funnel, this is also commonly seen in a flywheel. The flywheel helps to communicate how these post-conversion activities are regenerative, or contributing to your your continued growth.
In this stage, someone has just become aware of your business and, eventually, what you sell. They likely don’t know a ton about you — maybe they heard a friend talk about you or they saw your product on a shelf somewhere. They may have some light interaction with your brand. They may start following you on social media or pay closer attention to your advertising.
When a consumer begins to actively think about buying your product or service, they move into the consideration stage. In this stage, they start to engage with your brand more as they learn more about you. They visit your website or store. They ask people they know if they’ve tried your products. They research your business, your pricing, your competitors. In the consideration stage, a potential customer is asking themselves: do I want to buy this?
If the answer to that question is yes, they move into the conversion stage. Whether that’s purchasing an item from your website or signing a contract, they are buying what you are selling.
Ideally, a one-time purchase is not the end of your relationship with a customer. The loyalty stage means a customer is making repeat purchases and continuously engaging deeper with your brand.
A customer who has truly enjoyed their entire experience with your business is invaluable. Happy, loyal customers become brand advocates — they tell their friends, family, and strangers on the street how much they love your brand. They are now aware of your brand (remember that stage?). Word-of-mouth is one of the most powerful, organic forms of marketing.
This page would be endless if we tried to define every marketing channel/tactic/type. Digital marketing, content marketing, direct marketing, growth marketing, performance marketing, etc. etc. — different people have different ways they define and use marketing approaches.
For the purposes of brevity, these are a few areas of marketing that we spend a lot of time on with our clients: