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When we ponder the world of marketing, we will discover that there are several concepts and misconceptions that need to be addresses. The basic definition of marketing describes the various tasks that determine your continuing efforts to meet the needs of your customers and, of course, that you are getting a valuable return for your efforts. One consistent misconceptions of marketing is that marketing only concerns your advertising your product or service. Though marketing your product is a serious consideration, it is only one component in the marketing process.

Developing a good understanding of the needs and wants of your customers and developing a plan that addresses those needs is the essential element of ‘marketing.’ For a business owner to want his business to grow is a natural aspiration. Giving close attention to ‘organic growth’ is the most effective way to help your business grow.

One of the most effective ways to grow or expand a business is to concentrate on ‘organic growth.’ For us to understand ‘organic growth’, we need to be aware of the fact that a business is a living organism. We can either let it tend to itself or we can discover what its needs are to help it grow. When determining what the business needs, we can determine what we need to do to make it thrive.

Let’s look at two basic elements of marketing to help us get a better idea of the activities that we need to do to create a successful business. The first element of marketing that we need to consider is ‘developing a marketing plan.’ The second element is your ‘ongoing promotion.’ A serious mistake that many business owners make is to create a product or service and immediately begin an advertising campaign. After a further explanation of these two basic elements, you’ll understand why this mistake can be a disappointing and costly one.

For the survival of your business, it is extremely important to develop a ‘marketing strategy’ or ‘marketing plan.’ Refined research and analysis are the first steps to developing the ‘marketing plan’ best suited to your business. Don’t let this frustrate you. This is not as grueling as it sounds. It may take some time and effort on your part but you will find that it is well worth every minute.

Let’s begin by looking at a simplified explanation of ‘marketing analysis.’ We can apply two of Solomon’s Keys to Success at this point.

Proverbs 1:5 (Amplified Bible) “The wise also will hear and increase in learning, and the person of understanding will acquire skill and attain to sound counsel [so that he may be able to steer his course rightly]” Wise counsel can be found in many forms. We should also remember, for those of us who think we understand better than others, “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but he who listens to counsel is wise.” Proverbs 12:15 (Amplified Bible)

A well planned market analysis contains the following:

1.) Determining our ‘market’ or the groups of potential clients that exist,

2.) Determining our ‘target market’ or those clients that we prefer to serve,

3.) Learning the needs of our target market,

4.) Choosing the best products or services that might meet the needs of our target market,

5.) Determining the uses our potential clients might have for our products and services,

6.) Learning what our competitors are doing,

7.) Determining the pricing structure that we should use and

8.) Deciding how we should distribute our products and services to our target markets.

There are numerous methods of ‘market research’ that can be used to gather information concerning markets, target markets and customer needs, competitors’ products, etc. The ease of Internet research will reveal many sources of specific information. We must target our searches on the Internet search engines. This can be accomplished by beginning from a broad area of possibilities and with each subsequent search get more specific until we have discovered as much as possible about our market in general and specifically our target market. The resulting information will determine our ‘niche’ market, our specific area of a market that is best for our product or service.

After having developed our marketing plan, we should look at our plan for ‘ongoing promotions.’ Our plan for ongoing promotion will include advertising, public relations, sales and customer service to name a few. These terms (advertising, marketing, promotion, public relations and publicity, and sales) can easily become confusing. These are terms that are often used interchangeably. However, they refer to different but similar activities.

Look at a list of simplified definition of each term.

1.) Advertising — presenting a product (or service) to potential and current clients. Advertising needs to be focused on a particular product or service. We must understand that an advertising plan for one product will be different from that for another product. Advertising is usually done with signs, brochures, commercials, direct mailings or e-mail messages, personal contact, website banners, etc.

2.) Promotion – keeping our product in the minds of our customer (product recognition). The ongoing activities of advertising and public relations are often considered aspects of promotions.

3.) Public relations — Public relations is ongoing activities that ensure your product or service has a strong and positive public image.

4.) Publicity — being mentioned in the media. This is always the review of someone else but can include news releases.

The health and well being of a business is determined by the extent of diligent study and the application of the success principles that you learn through study. To best become acquainted with your product or service or customers or competitors, a sincere determination to be as diligent as possible is essentail.

Memorize these success principles found in Solomon’s Proverbs to help you develop a growing and successful business.

Proverbs 10:4 (The Amplified Bible) “He becomes poor who works with a slack and idle hand, but the hand of the diligent makes rich.”

Proverbs 12:24 (NASB) “The hand of the diligent will rule, but the slack hand will be put to forced labor.”

Proverbs 13:4 (NASB) “The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, but the soul of the diligent is made fat.”

Proverbs 21:5 (NASB) “The plans of the diligent lead surely to advantage, but everyone who is hasty comes surely to poverty.”

Write this last Proverb over and over until it is embedded into your memory. It will be a blessing.

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