What is Marketing?

Marketing is the process of creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers. It is a set of activities and strategies designed to enhance brand awareness, promote products or services, and generate interest and purchases from customers.

The primary goal of marketing is to build strong and long-lasting relationships with customers. This involves understanding customer needs, creating suitable products or services, informing and promoting them to the target audience, and ultimately encouraging customers to make purchases and maintain post-sale relationships.

Marketing encompasses various activities such as market research, customer segmentation analysis, developing marketing strategies, advertising, public relations, brand promotion, content creation, online advertising, sales promotion, and customer relationship management. The key aspect of marketing is to focus on customers and effectively meet their needs to achieve the organization’s business objectives.

=> Marketing is about taking your products or services to the places where they can be most seen by a large number of people, and those places must be relevant to your products or services (targeted customer audience).

Stages in Marketing

Stage 1: Marketing Research

Marketing research is the process of collecting and analyzing information related to the market, customers, competitors, and business environment to make effective marketing decisions and plans. Marketing research helps to understand customer needs, desires, and behaviors, which guides product development, identifies target customer segments, and builds marketing strategies.

Stage 2: Data Analytics

Data analytics in marketing involves using methods and tools to understand and extract insights from data relevant to marketing activities. This includes collecting, processing, and analyzing data to discover valuable information, trends, and patterns for marketing campaigns. Data analytics in marketing enhances decision-making, improves marketing strategies, and shapes marketing actions.

Stage 3: Marketing Communication

Marketing communication is the process of conveying and delivering marketing messages of a company, brand, or product to customers and the public. It includes all activities and tools used to build and manage brand image, create brand awareness, and engage with customers. Marketing communication plays a vital role in building customer relationships, enhancing brand awareness, building trust, and driving marketing efforts. It encompasses activities such as advertising, public relations, investor relations, social media advertising, events, and more.

Stage 4: Customer Experience (CX)

In marketing, customer experience refers to all perceptions, impressions, and interactions that customers have when engaging with a brand, product, or service. It includes both direct and indirect experiences, from the initial exposure to the brand to the purchasing process, product usage, post-sale support, and subsequent interactions.

Customer experience is essential in marketing as it directly influences customer satisfaction, loyalty, and future interactions with the brand. A positive customer experience can turn customers into enthusiastic advocates, promoting the brand to others. Conversely, a poor customer experience can lead to customer loss and negative impacts on the brand’s image and reputation.

To provide a good customer experience, businesses typically focus on understanding and meeting customers’ needs and desires. This requires attention to factors such as:

• User-friendly and intuitive product or service interfaces.
• Product or service quality.
• Customer support and care.
• Speed and flexibility in the transaction process.
• Communication and interactions with customers.
• Product or service trials and testing.
• Prompt and effective response to customer requests and complaints.
• .vvv

Building and managing a good customer experience is a crucial factor in creating a competitive edge and establishing long-term relationships with customers.

Stage 5: Trade Marketing

Trade Marketing is a marketing strategy that focuses on the relationship between the manufacturer and distribution partners, such as retailers, distributors, agents, or salespeople. The main objective of Trade Marketing is to optimize cooperation with business partners and create a favorable environment to boost sales and enhance marketing efficiency.

Trade Marketing often employs specific marketing activities and tools to meet the needs of business partners while building strong and long-lasting relationships with them. These activities may include:

Pricing strategy: Establishing competitive pricing policies, discounts, promotional offers, and product categorization.

Point-of-sale management: Implementing management and product display solutions at the point of sale to create a convenient shopping experience and enhance customer access.

Advertising and marketing programs: Collaborating with business partners to deploy advertising, marketing, and promotional activities to increase brand awareness and sales volume.

Training and support for partners: Providing training, guidance, and technical support to business partners to improve product knowledge and sales capabilities.

Trade Marketing enhances interaction between manufacturers and business partners, improves marketing effectiveness, and boosts sales volume. It focuses on building strong and reliable partner relationships to create long-term benefits for both parties.

Digital Marketing Channels

Stage 1: Website Development

Building a website is a crucial part of modern marketing and marketing strategies. Your website is where potential and current customers can learn about your brand, products, and services, interact with content, and make purchases. Below are some important factors to consider when building a website in marketing:

Attractive and user-friendly design: Your website should have an appealing, professional, and user-friendly design. It should be compatible with mobile devices and provide a good user experience across all platforms.

Quality content: Your website needs to provide useful, engaging, and relevant content related to your business objectives. Content may include information about products and services, news, industry articles, usage guides, and similar materials.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Building a website should focus on SEO optimization to improve visibility on search engines. This includes using relevant keywords, optimizing titles, descriptions, and URLs, providing quality content, and building backlinks to your website from other sources.

Integration of analytics tools: Ensure that your website is integrated with analytics tools like Google Analytics to track and evaluate the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. Analytics tools help you monitor website traffic, customer behavior, conversions, and other metrics to gain comprehensive insights into your website’s performance and marketing campaigns.

Clear Call-to-Action (CTA): Your website should have clear and compelling CTAs to encourage customer interactions. These could be “Buy Now” buttons, contact forms, newsletter sign-ups, or invitations to participate in promotional programs.

Social media integration: Building a website should include links to your social media pages. This helps potential customers connect and share information from your website with their social community, creating brand interaction and message dissemination.

Create a multi-channel experience: Your website should be compatible and integrated with various marketing channels such as email marketing, online advertising, remarketing, and other social platforms. This helps create a seamless multi-channel experience for customers and increases conversion opportunities.

Overall, building a website in marketing is an essential process to establish and enhance your brand’s online presence, provide a good customer experience, and increase conversion rates.

Stage 2: Building Media Channels (Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Google…)

Building media channels on platforms such as Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Google, and other social networks is a crucial part of modern marketing and marketing strategies. These media channels allow you to reach and interact with potential and current customers in the online environment. Below are some important points when building media channels on these platforms:

Define goals and target audience: First, identify your objectives and the audience you want to reach on each platform. Each platform has different characteristics and user demographics, so customization of content and approaches is necessary to fit your goals and target audience.

Create quality content: Building media channels requires generating engaging and high-quality content to capture the attention of customers. Provide useful, interesting, and relevant content related to your business area. Utilize images, videos, articles, stories, and other content forms to encourage interaction and sharing.

Build a community and interact: Media channels are not just for advertising products, but also for building a community and interacting with customers. Respond to comments, messages, and feedback from customers, encourage them to participate in conversations, and foster a connection with your brand.

Advertising and promotions: Use advertising features on media platforms to enhance visibility and reach potential customers. Create engaging and relevant ad campaigns that align with your marketing goals. Additionally, consider using promotions and special offers to incentivize customer engagement and purchases.

Tracking and evaluation: Most importantly, utilize analytics tools to monitor the effectiveness of your media channels. Track website traffic, interactions, conversions, and other metrics to evaluate the success of your campaigns and adjust your marketing strategy accordingly.

By building media channels on these platforms, you can create brand awareness, reach potential customers, and increase conversion rates. However, remember to tailor and customize your strategies to fit your goals and target audience on each platform.

Defining Conversion Goals

Conversion in marketing is the process of turning a potential customer into an actual customer or getting them to perform a desired action. This is a critical objective in marketing campaigns because successful conversions bring business value and increase sales.

Conversions can take various forms depending on the specific goals of the marketing campaign. Examples of conversion actions include:

• Purchase: Customers make a purchase of a product or service from the company.
• Sign-up: Customers register personal information, email addresses, or accounts to receive information, news, or offers from the company.
• Download: Customers download documents, reports, applications, or other resources from the website or app.
• Service Subscription: Customers sign up and become users of a particular service, such as subscribing to a streaming service, social network, or online platform.
• Newsletter Subscription: Customers subscribe to receive information, newsletters, or updates from the company.
• Social Media Interaction: Customers engage in interactions, such as liking, commenting, sharing, or following on the company’s social media channels.

The goal of conversions is to encourage customers to take the desired actions that benefit the company, such as generating sales revenue, enhancing potential customer base, building long-term relationships, and increasing brand interaction. Conversion strategies in marketing often involve optimizing websites, online advertising, search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing, and email campaigns.

Media Models

The pull and push models are two marketing strategies used to approach and interact with customers. Both models focus on how to reach and communicate with customers but employ different methods and approaches.

Pull Model:

In the pull model, businesses create demand and entice customers to seek out their products or services. Instead of directly approaching customers, businesses create compelling content, advertisements, and marketing campaigns to encourage customers to seek their products. This often involves building a strong brand presence and undertaking advertising, online marketing, public relations, and relationship-building through channels like media, social media, websites, online search, and content marketing. The goal of the pull model is to make customers interested in the product and come to the business on their own.

Push Model:

In the push model, businesses focus on pushing their products or services directly to customers. Companies use traditional media such as TV, radio, print, outdoor advertising, and direct marketing campaigns to introduce products and persuade customers to make purchases. This may also involve using distribution channels such as retail, agents, and direct sales to access customers. The goal of the push model is to create immediate demand and prompt customers to make quick purchases.

Both pull and push models have their own advantages and limitations. The application of either model depends on the industry, target market, and specific business strategy. Some businesses use a combination of both models to optimize marketing effectiveness and customer reach.

Determining Media Vehicles

Advertising in marketing is a direct form of communication used to inform, promote, and advertise products, services, or brands of a company to potential customers. It is an essential tool in marketing strategies to create awareness, enhance interest, and encourage customer engagement and purchases.

Advertising in marketing can be executed through various media vehicles, including:

Traditional Media

• Television advertising: Broadcasting commercials on TV channels to reach a large audience.
• Radio advertising: Broadcasting audio commercials on radio stations to reach listeners.
• Print advertising: Placing advertisements in newspapers, magazines, or printed publications to reach readers.
• Digital Media Online advertising: Utilizing online advertising formats such as banners, videos, display ads on websites, mobile applications, online videos, and social media platforms.
• Search advertising: Placing ads on search engines like Google AdWords or Bing Ads to display ads when users search for keywords related to products or services.
• Social media advertising: Using ads on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn to reach social media users.
• Out-of-Home Media Outdoor advertising: Placing ads on billboards, signage, ads on buses, bus stops, train stations, airports, and other public locations to reach customers in public spaces.
• Mobile Advertising: Placing advertisements on buses, fire trucks, taxis, subways, and other mobile vehicles to promote the brand within the city.

The goal of advertising in marketing is to create brand awareness, stimulate interest, generate purchasing motivation, and build customer loyalty. Effective advertising must create compelling messages, accurately target the audience, and utilize appropriate media to reach the right customer segments.

7P Marketing Mix Audit

The Marketing Mix 7P is an extended concept of the traditional 4P Marketing Mix (Product, Price, Place, Promotion) and includes three additional elements: People, Process, and Physical Evidence. The Marketing Mix 7P provides a more comprehensive framework for managing and designing marketing strategies for a product or service. Below are the components of the Marketing Mix 7P:

• Product: This is the core element of the Marketing Mix. It involves researching, developing, and managing the product or service to meet the needs and expectations of customers.
• Price: This element is related to pricing the product or service reasonably to create value for customers while ensuring profitability for the business.
• Place: This determines where the product or service is sold to customers. It includes identifying and managing distribution channels, ordering, transportation, and product delivery.
• Promotion: This element is related to advertising activities, promotions, public relations, and media to create awareness and enhance the value of the product or service.
• People: This relates to the people within the business, including sales personnel, customer service representatives, and other related employees. The quality and skills of personnel can significantly impact the customer experience.
• Process: This element is related to the processes and operations of the business, including production processes, transaction processes, after-sales processes, and other procedures. Efficient processes can optimize effectiveness and enhance the customer experience.
• Physical Evidence: This is related to physical elements such as store, showroom, product design, packaging, documentation, and other factors that customers can see, touch, and experience. These factors can influence the reliability and value of the product or service.

Managing the 7P Marketing Mix helps businesses identify and control all essential elements to meet the needs and expectations of customers, gain a competitive advantage, and achieve success in the market.

Caculate ROI

ROI (Return on Investment) in marketing is a measurement that businesses use to evaluate the benefits they receive from their marketing activities in which they have invested.

The formula for calculating ROI in marketing is as follows:

ROI = (Profit – Investment Cost) / Investment Cost x 100

Where:

• Profit: Total revenue or sales value that you have obtained from the marketing campaign.
• Investment Cost: The total amount of money you spent on the marketing campaign, including items such as advertising, online marketing, events, market research, and other marketing activities.

The result of ROI is calculated as a percentage or ratio. If ROI is greater than 0, it indicates that you have made a profit from the marketing campaign. If ROI is negative, it means that your marketing campaign did not generate profit.

To calculate ROI accurately, you need to clearly identify the components of profit and cost for the marketing campaign. This requires you to have a tracking and measurement system for the effectiveness of marketing activities and analyze the results in detail to determine profit and cost accurately.

ROI is an important tool for evaluating the effectiveness of marketing activities and guiding marketing decisions in the future. However, it also has limitations because it only focuses on the financial aspect and does not measure non-financial values such as brand recognition, market share growth, or customer engagement. Therefore, in addition to ROI, other indicators and tools should be considered to comprehensively assess the effectiveness of marketing activities.

Link to the formula for calculating ROI:

(https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1E538INBIonKjbpi4Bz7aYJmZpt9DdqnCd7_vnnQj3IQ/edit?usp=sharing)

Marketing Testing

In the field of marketing, conducting tests plays a crucial role in evaluating the effectiveness of elements and marketing strategies. Below are some common types of tests in marketing:

• A/B Testing: This is a comparison test between two different versions of a marketing element (e.g., email subject line, landing page, ad design) to determine which version performs better. The basic principle is to randomly divide customers into two groups, each receiving a different version, and then compare the results to determine which version is more effective.
• Location and Content Testing: This test focuses on identifying the most effective location and content for placing advertisements or content on a website or email. By changing position, size, color, text ratio, and images, marketers can identify the impact of each element on interaction and conversion.
• User Testing: This process involves receiving feedback from actual users about their experience when using a product, website, or application. By observing and recording feedback, marketers can learn about aspects that need improvement, barriers that create difficulties for users, and ways to enhance the experience.
• Market Testing: This type of test is used to assess the market’s reaction to a new product or service. Market testing methods may include surveys, interviews, product testing with a small group of users, or creating a trial version in a small market to measure customer response.

These types of tests in marketing provide marketers with detailed and intelligent insights into the effectiveness of their elements and marketing strategies. The results from these tests provide essential information for optimizing marketing campaigns, enhancing customer interaction and conversion, and achieving business goals.

Pushing Marketing After Testing

After completing the testing process and collecting the results, you can evaluate whether the results of the tests align with the initial objectives. Based on this, you can make decisions about pushing your marketing budget.

If the test results show that the tested elements and marketing strategies have yielded positive and significant results, you may consider increasing your marketing budget to continue deploying and expanding successful campaigns. This may include boosting advertising, expanding the reach to target customers, or enhancing the quality and impact of marketing campaigns.

However, before pushing your marketing budget, consider other factors such as resources and your business goals. Ensure that increasing the marketing budget is feasible and reasonable within the overall context of your business. Take into account factors such as ROI (Return on Investment), growth rate, and the financial capacity of your business to make intelligent decisions about pushing your marketing budget.

In addition to boosting the marketing budget, remember that continuous testing and measuring effectiveness are essential to ensure that the budget is used effectively and yields positive results for your business.

Remarketing Matrix

The remarketing matrix is a method of classifying and segmenting customers based on their behavior and interactions with your brand. This method helps identify potential customer groups and apply appropriate remarketing strategies to each group.

The remarketing matrix typically uses two crucial factors for customer segmentation:

• Previous interaction level: This refers to the level of interaction and interest that customers have shown in the past. For example, customers who have viewed product pages, added items to the cart but haven’t completed the purchase. For this group, remarketing campaigns may focus on encouraging them to complete the transaction and provide incentives to motivate them to make a purchase.
• Time since last interaction: This measures the time elapsed since customers’ last interaction with your brand or website. For instance, the number of days or weeks since they visited your website. For this group, remarketing campaigns may provide brand reminders, offer the latest information, or promotions to entice them to return and continue engaging.
  Based on these two factors, the remarketing matrix commonly divides customers into four main segments:
• Hot customers: This group consists of customers with high interaction levels who recently engaged with your brand. For example, customers who added products to the cart but haven’t completed the purchase. For this group, remarketing campaigns may focus on encouraging them to complete the purchase and create excitement to prompt them to take action.
• Warm customers: This group includes customers with high interaction levels but a longer time since their last interaction. For example, customers who engaged with the website a few weeks ago. For this group, remarketing campaigns may serve as brand reminders, provide updated information, or special offers to entice them to return and continue engaging.
• Cold customers: This group comprises customers with low interaction levels but recently interacted with your brand. For example, customers who visited the website once and had no subsequent interactions. For this group, remarketing campaigns may create brand awareness, provide useful information, and especially stimulate further interaction.
• Cold-cold customers: This group consists of customers with low interaction levels and a long time since their last interaction. For example, customers who visited the website once and had no interactions for an extended period. For this group, remarketing campaigns may create brand awareness, provide engaging content, and create excitement to encourage them to return and engage.

By segmenting customers and applying appropriate remarketing strategies to each group, the remarketing matrix helps optimize the effectiveness of marketing campaigns, enhance customer engagement, and conversion.

Customer Aftercare

Customer aftercare is the process of maintaining and enhancing the relationship with customers after they have purchased your products or used your services. The goal of customer aftercare is to create a positive experience and maintain customer satisfaction while building long-term relationships and turning customers into brand advocates. Below are some ways to implement customer aftercare:

• Send a thank-you message: Send an email or letter expressing gratitude to customers after they have made a purchase or used your services. Let them know that their satisfaction is important to you and show appreciation for choosing your products or services.
• Provide customer support: Ensure that you have an effective customer support process in place to address inquiries, handle issues, and provide assistance to customers. Be attentive to and resolve any requests or feedback from customers promptly, ensuring they receive quick help and solutions.
• Create a good experience: Strive to provide a good and memorable experience for customers after they have purchased your products or used your services. This may include offering usage guides, reference materials, advice, and technical support. Ensure that customers feel satisfied and confident in using your products or services.
• Establish regular contact and communication: Stay in touch with customers regularly to maintain the relationship and create a sense of attachment. Send them newsletters, updates on products, or special offers. This helps customers feel cared for and enables them to explore more about your new products or services.
• Implement a customer loyalty program: Build a customer loyalty program or rewards system to thank and encourage customers to continue using your products or services. This could include reward points, discounts, gifts, or other special benefits exclusively for your loyal customers.
• Collect feedback from customers: Request feedback from customers about their experience with your products or services. Gathering this feedback helps you understand the strengths and areas for improvement, enabling you to enhance and develop new products or services that better meet their needs.

Customer aftercare is an essential part of marketing strategy that helps foster long-term relationships and increases the likelihood of repeat purchases and referrals. It is an opportunity to demonstrate care and attention to your customers, thus building trust and support for your brand.

Updating and Developing New Products, Services

Updating and developing new products or services is an important aspect of marketing strategy to meet customer needs, ensure competitiveness, and achieve sustainable business growth. Below are some steps to update and develop new products or services:

• Market Research and Analysis: The first step is to conduct market research and analysis to understand customer needs, desires, and trends. Analyze competitors and the strengths/weaknesses of similar products or services in the market to identify differentiation points and new opportunities.
• Gather Customer Feedback: Engage with current and potential customers to gather their opinions, feedback, and suggestions. This can be done through surveys, interviews, workshops, or monitoring feedback on social media or other communication channels. Customer feedback is a valuable source of information for improving and developing new products or services.
• Research and Develop New Products or Services: Based on the information collected from market research and customer feedback, begin the process of researching and developing new products or services. Identify features, technologies, designs, and added value that the new product or service will bring to customers. Ensure that the new offering meets customers’ needs and desires, providing a better solution or improvement compared to existing products or services on the market.
• Test and Trial: Before launching the new product or service, conduct tests and trials to ensure its quality and functionality. This can include internal testing, testing with a sample group of customers, or testing in a small market.
• Launch the New Product or Service: Once the new product or service has been thoroughly tested and deemed feasible, it’s time for the official launch. Plan and execute marketing campaigns to introduce the new offering and create interest and attention from customers.
• Evaluate and Adjust: After the new product or service has been launched, evaluate its effectiveness and customer feedback. Gather information on sales performance, customer satisfaction, market evaluation, and competitive changes. Based on this information, adjust and refine your marketing strategy to improve the product or service and meet the changing needs of the market.

Updating and developing new products or services is an ongoing process in marketing to respond to market changes and customer needs. By investing in research and development, you can maintain competitiveness and meet the increasing demands of customers.