Why Marketing Matters: The Noun and the Verb

Why Marketing Matters: More Than Creative

– Building a business is tough, there?s not a single person who would disagree with that statement. In order to be successful, most businesses must rely on building the business through relationships. This is one of the most sustainable strategies you can implement.

An essential part to this strategy is building relationships with people who search and purchase your products and services. Whether you?re a B2B or B2C business, every business needs to develop meaningful relationships to effectively target and sell.

This is where marketing matters. And to preface this article, we might add that marketing is both a noun and a verb!

More Than a Creative Function

?Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offers that have value for customers, clients, partners and society at large.? ? American Marketing Association

Marketing is an essential part of business, whether it?s the noun or verb form. Marketing incorporates many functions including attracting prospects, building a product or service demand and winning over customers. It?s essentially the sum total of sales, pricing, promotion and advertising efforts executed to promote the transfer of goods from you to the consumer.

So, Marketing Matters

Marketing is a business discipline, not a skill reserved only for graphic designers and copywriters. It attracts and builds connections with your prospects. It is also a measurable asset in terms of opportunities and revenue:

• Is the number of opportunities increasing?
• Are these opportunities converting into sales?
• Are these sales increasing revenue?

If not, it doesn?t necessarily mean marketing isn?t working ? it may mean you?re focusing on the wrong mediums. Spend a little on advertising, spend a lot on content marketing. These are all tweaks to consider when assessing your marketing strategy.

Cutting the Marketing Budget

All too often, small (and sometimes large) businesses find reasons to cut marketing budgets and sometimes the entire department. They consider it a soft expense and the least valuable especially when compared to the Sales department. The question then becomes, how much good will your sales team do with no good leads (cue the flashback to Glengarry Glen Ross)?

Sometimes you have to spend money to make money.

Marketing is An Investment

Marketing is an investment and can be considered a proactive way of looking into the future at the next sale. While unchecked creativity can cost the company money, it might just need a clear strategy to set it in the right direction. This strategy helps establish not only goals set for marketing, but also overall revenue goals.

If you’re reevaluating your marketing efforts, it might be time to talk to a consultant. We can assess any performance gaps and offer insight into where you could be more effective with your marketing dollars. We have experience in both Traditional and Internet Marketing for business of all types and sizes:

Marketing Matters Inbound?is an inbound marketing firm specializing in online conversions, content?strategy, PPC campaigns and traditional media placement. Our experience in?B2B digital?marketing?and?traditional media?allows us to deliver results through a strategic media mix. We believe in?aligning and merging marketing and sales/operations for optimal return on your marketing investment.