Marketing is a broad spectrum of activities and ideologies – so broad that misconceptions are common. Listening to some of these and believing them to be true could harm your sales efforts and business. With that, here are some of the top myths – debunked.
1. Everyone Is Your Customer – MYTH
Every product and service has a specific target audience, and that target audience doesn’t always include the entire population. For example, you wouldn’t advertise an all you can eat shrimp buffet to someone who is allergic to shellfish. That’s an extreme example, but you get the point. So, it doesn’t make sense to waste your ad dollars targeting everyone, in hopes of reaching the right people. Better to be laser focused on the people most likely to convert.
2. If It Worked for Another Company, It Will Work for Yours – MYTH
Just because one company did something that was successful for them doesn’t mean it will be successful for yours as well. The products or services offered between both companies could be very different and have different target audiences, or different means of promoting their products and services. Social media advertising may work better than search advertising and vice versa, depending on what is being advertised and to whom as well as the overall objective of the campaign.
3. Marketing and Advertising Are The Same Thing – MYTH
Although they do go hand in hand, marketing and advertising are not the same thing. Marketing is identifying who the customers are, what their needs are and determining how to meet those needs. Marketing refers to the planning of an organization’s promotional efforts to achieve an outcome. While advertising is the actual process of promoting a product or service through advertisements to entice consumers into buying what is being sold.
4. You Do Not Need A Marketing Plan – MYTH
If you’ve ever watched Dragon’s Den you probably recall that there would be at least one contestant that had no marketing plan. Even when the dragons were interested in the product, once they heard there was no marketing plan, they backed out, because products don’t sell themselves. A marketing plan drives sales and is important to promoting, growing, and ensuring the long-term success of your business.
5. If you build a website, they will come – MYTH
There are over 1 billion websites and over 25 billion webpages indexed online. How will customers find yours? To make a website launch successful you need a website that’s SEO optimized to interface directly with the search engines, and you need to promote it.
