What Is Marketing? [Simple Definition, Purpose, & Types]

You cognize you request to prosecute successful selling to scope your perfect customers and transportation them to buy.

But selling tin beryllium hard to recognize beyond those basics. 

Let’s dive in.

What Is Marketing?

Marketing is each the activities your marque uses to scope your target audience and crook them into customers. And ideally person them marque repetition purchases. 

It should pull caller prospects, amended them astir your brand, person them to bargain from you, and physique lasting relationships.

At each stage, determination are less imaginable customers. Which is wherefore selling is usually visualized arsenic a funnel. Like this:

Here are a fewer examples of ways to prosecute successful marketing:

• Working with societal media influencers to marque their followers alert of your products oregon services
• Creating an archetypal probe study and promoting it done newsletters, societal media posts, and paid hunt ads
• Publishing a examination usher that spells retired precisely however you disagree from your rivals and optimizing it to summation visibility successful hunt engines
• Using email marketing to deploy sequences targeted astatine leads who’ve engaged with you but haven’t yet go customers
• Sending substance messages promoting peculiar deals to existing customers

Done right, these activities tin yet construe to seamless handoffs to your income team. Or adjacent pb to nonstop sales.

Marketing vs. Advertising: What’s the Difference?

Marketing successful concern is everything you bash to pull prospects, prosecute with them, and person them into customers.

Advertising is simply a subset of marketing. And involves activities that straight beforehand your brand, content, oregon products/services. 

In astir cases, advertizing involves paid tactics. Like this Instagram advertisement from Benjamin Moore:

While advertizing is often utilized to thrust sales, it tin besides beryllium utilized to boost marque awareness, beforehand content, etc. 

8 Common Types of Marketing

Now that we’ve defined marketing, present are immoderate of the astir communal types:

• Traditional marketing: Entails utilizing offline channels similar paper ads, billboards, and TV commercials. It’s effectual for section outreach but offers constricted targeting beyond that.
• Digital marketing: Involves online channels similar websites, show ads, and societal media. It often allows for precise targeting and real-time analytics.
• Content marketing: Focuses connected creating invaluable contented to attract, convert, and clasp customers. These pieces tin see blog posts, ebooks, and infographics.
• Email marketing: Involves sending targeted messages straight to your audience’s inboxes. It’s large for nurturing leads and maintaining relationships.
• Video marketing: Focuses connected utilizing videos to link with your audience. Product demos and tutorials enactment particularly good successful this format.
• Influencer marketing: Relies connected collaborating with fashionable individuals with ample followings to beforehand your products oregon services. It’s chiefly done connected societal media.
• Affiliate marketing: Involves moving with publishers oregon creators to beforehand your marque successful speech for a commission. It’s often done done a ceremonial programme with presumption some parties hold to.
• Search motor optimization (SEO): Centers astir making improvements that assistance your website look (i.e., “rank”) higher successful hunt results and summation much integrated (unpaid) traffic. It tin beryllium utilized for immoderate benignant of webpage, but it’s particularly communal to make SEO-focused blog posts.

For galore tiny and caller companies, SEO is simply a large spot to start. Because it takes small concern beyond what it takes to make and optimize your website’s content.

It’s particularly casual to get started erstwhile you make a free Semrush account. Which gives you entree to implicit 55 tools you tin usage for tasks similar keyword research, contented ideation, show tracking and more.

For example, you tin usage the Keyword Magic Tool to find words and phrases that your perfect customers are really utilizing to find accusation and offerings that are related to you.

And past make optimized articles to people those keywords utilizing the SEO Writing Assistant.

How to Lay the Groundwork for Your Marketing Strategy

Any palmy marketing strategy is built disconnected a model called the selling premix that includes 4 elements: product, price, place, and promotion.

They’re commonly known arsenic the 4 Ps of marketing. Let’s look astatine each much closely: 

Product

This refers to what you’re offering—which tin beryllium a merchandise oregon a service. And considers who you’re trying to reach.

You request to cognize your features and benefits and however you’re chiseled from the contention (i.e., your unique worth proposition).

Understanding your merchandise oregon work thoroughly allows you to align it with your audience’s expectations. And find the champion mode to pass accusation astir it to them.

But earlier you tin bash that, you request to uncover details astir your audience.

Do this by entering immoderate of your main competitors into One2Target. So you tin find your people audience’s demographic, socioeconomic, and behavioral information.

Let’s accidental you merchantability eco-friendly h2o bottles. And spot that your assemblage is chiefly radical aged 25-34 who enactment full-time and person families. 

With this information, you tin make messaging that speaks straight to engaged young parents.

Price

Price is what your merchandise oregon work volition cost. And getting this constituent close helps you debar customers reasoning what you merchantability is either excessively costly oregon not precocious successful quality.

Plus, you request to acceptable a terms that balances retired your ain costs and allows you to crook a profit.

To find the due price, see what your competitors charge, however overmuch disposable income your assemblage has, and however you privation to presumption yourself successful the market.

For instance, if you’re launching a caller sustainable h2o bottle, you mightiness terms it little than competitors’ products to pull budget-conscious consumers.

And the “Socioeconomics” study successful One2Target confirms that focusing connected a little terms volition apt entreaty to this audience. 

Place

Place refers to wherever you connection your merchandise oregon work to customers. And tin see some carnal locations and online destinations.

Ideally, you privation to marque your offerings disposable wherever your people assemblage is astir apt to shop. Because these places volition apt pb to much sales. 

You tin find retired what those are utilizing Market Explorer. 

Start connected the “Overview” tab, scroll to the “Domain vs Market Dynamics” section, and look astatine the “Traffic Distribution” module.

In this case, the immense bulk of postulation to sites successful this marketplace comes from nonstop visits and integrated search. Which suggests selling connected your website is simply a bully choice. If this weren’t the case, focusing connected carnal stores mightiness enactment better.

Next, spell to the “Audience” tab, scroll down to the “Visited Domains” section, and analyse the database of different sites the assemblage commonly visits.

Based connected what you spot here, you mightiness privation to spouse with a fewer large retailers similar Walmart and Target.

Promotion

Promotion is which marketing tactics (running a sale, publishing prime content, etc.) and channels (social media, paid search, etc.) you’ll usage to scope your people audience. 

Once you cognize those details, you tin tailor your messaging to align with antithetic campaigns and platforms. To efficaciously convey your worth proposition and transportation prospects to instrumentality the adjacent step. 

The close tactics and channels beryllium connected your concern needs and your audience. 

Let’s accidental your eco-friendly h2o vessel institution has a precise tiny selling budget. So, you determine to absorption connected reaching customers via SEO and societal media—two of the astir affordable options.

How tin you take the champion societal media platforms?

With One2Target.

The “Behavior” tab shows which societal media platforms this assemblage uses most. 

This accusation shows it’s a bully thought to commencement with YouTube, Facebook, and TikTok. And you tin adjacent repurpose longer YouTube videos by turning them into clips to station connected Facebook and TikTok. 

Start Marketing Your Business

Marketing is indispensable to attracting customers and driving growth. But it tin beryllium hard to cognize however to begin.

And you don’t privation to discarded clip and wealth putting unneurotic a guesswork-based strategy that’s improbable to succeed.

Thankfully, Semrush tools similar Market Explorer and One2Target fto you get the information you request to trade a well-informed strategy.

Try them contiguous with a .Trends subscription.