What is Advertising?

Advertising is making both repeat customers and potential new customers aware of an individual product or service that you’re selling.  Each advertising plan targets a single product (or service).  The advertising of every product or service is unique.  Advertising is in many forms:

* commercials

*newspaper and magazine ads

*emails

*brochures

*Flyers

*cold calls to potential clients (word of mouth)

What is Marketing?

Marketing is a broader range of activities for a product or service.  Activities involved in marketing a product include:

 *Research

*Advertising

*Sales

*Public relations

*Customer service and satisfaction

Marketing also targets one product or service, but it’s much more technicial than simply advertising a product.  Here’s a look at the different aspects of marketing.

1. Research

Research is very important to effectively market a product or service.  Here are some questions to ask:

Who are the potential customers for my product?

What do those potential customers want and need and can I provide it?

What are my potential customers willing to pay?

Who are my competitors, and what are their strengths and weaknesses?

How can I strengthen the competitors weakness?

What can I do that my competitors can’t? (What’s my niche?)

2.  Advertising

Use your research to create your advertising campaign for your product or service. Make sure you keep the above points in mind, showing the answers in your campaign!

3. Sales

Making sales of your products or services is self-explanatory. If you’ve done your research and created an effective advertising campaign, you will begin to see sales from those efforts. But there’s more work to be done in your marketing campaign.

4. Public Relations

This is your ongoing relationship with the public, and continuous promotion of your business so that people view you in a positive light. This can be done through press releases and the other methods you have used to promote your business.

You can also go straight to the public by becoming more involved in your community through public service projects.

5. Customer Service and Satisfaction

Once you have developed a relationship with an individual and they become your customer you do not want to jeopardize that relationship. Keep them informed with all upcoming sales and events. Do a survey and find out how you are doing in the eyes of a customer. When customers come to you with complaints or questions, make sure you’re there for them and attend to the complaint or answer their questions immediately. This will strengthen the relationship and head off potential problems in the future.

As you can see advertising and marketing are not the same thing. Advertising is just one aspect of your overall marketing plan. The two should go hand-in-hand to help you better meet the needs of your customers and create unlimited sales potentials for you!.