Importance of Marketing for Any Size Business
Marketing, the process in which a good or service goes from an idea, to a product or service, and to the end customer. In marketing there are four pillars, known as the four P’s of marketing; product, price, place, and promotion. A business can have a great product, but without marketing, how are people going to find out about the product or service, and ultimately how are they going to purchase. Marketing is the heart of any business, market your product properly and favorable results are likely to happen. Here are a few good examples; petrock.com, chia.com, iwanttodrawacatforyou.com, and there are many more examples out there.
4 P’s Of Marketing
The four p’s of marketing stand for product, price, place, and promotion.
Product
In marketing, a product means both a good and a service, for most of us reading this, our service we offer is tax preparation or accounting services. A product could be anything that you would like to sell or trade.
Price
This is what consumers pay for your product. Some people like to raise the price to make the product seem as a luxury, but if the price is too high, it might affect the sales. If the price is lowered, then more consumers may be able to try out the product, but your margins (the profit) are not going to be as big.
Place
The place is where the product is sold, and how it is delivered to the market. The main goal for anyone seeking a place to sell a product, is to try to put the product in front of the target market. This could be putting a physical product on a store shelve, or where a digital product is placed on a web page. In other examples it can also mean, putting the product in front of eyes, such as; television ads, Facebook ads, or really any form of advertisements, try to put the product in front of your target market.
Promotion
This is a mix of all the previous mentioned P’s, and includes; advertising, public relations and strategy to combine all these elements. Promoting a product shows the potential buyer, why they need the product, and why they should pay the price that it is.
Importance of Marketing
According to the IRS there are 704,363 individuals with a current Preparer Tax Identification Number (PTIN). Theoretically that means these 700 thousand individuals are competing in the same industry. Take for example two new California preparers Emma and Maria. Both just completed their course, got their bond and are ready to start preparing tax returns. Both have no experience, and no friends or family, how are they going to acquire clients. Emma knows a bit about technology and remembers seeing flyers on her car while she goes grocery shopping, she gets the great idea of running Facebook Ads, targeting her town, and a 15-mile radius for the rural areas around her town. In addition to the online Ads, she also prints flyers, and hands them out around popular areas. Maria prepares a few tax returns and relies solely on word of mouth, both are in the same industry, same town, and same experience, but different marketing strategies.
Conclusion
According to flurry analytics, United States users are spending more time on their mobile devices. At the time of the study U.S users were up to 5 hours a day, which is a 69 percent increase from the previous year. The trend is continuing to grow, more time will be spent on mobile devices, and ultimately more time is being spent online. As the world is moving to the information age, are you keeping up with the changes.
