Everyone has a different idea of marketing. Whether you think it’s billboards at bus stops, an internet celebrity promoting a product, or an advert you saw on TV, you know the point of marketing — to sell a product or service to the masses.

Marketing is made up of hundreds of different actions, all working towards the same goal. It can be a tough topic to understand, so let’s start at the beginning.

“I love the power of marketing, knowing that I am creating content that will influence others to take action.” — Annabelle Baugh, Senior Content Marketer at Thinkplus.

What is Marketing?

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, marketing is “The action or business of promoting and selling products or services, including market research and advertising.”

The purpose of marketing is to get your product in front of people who want to buy it.

This could be through:

• Adverts in magazines
• Posts on social media
• A page of your website appearing in search results
• A TV advert
• Someone using a tote bag with your logo on it.

The possibilities are endless, which can feel a bit daunting. Don’t worry; that’s what this guide is here for — to help you understand what marketing is all about.

The Fundamentals of Marketing

Before you build a marketing strategy, you need to understand the fundamentals of marketing
These fundamentals are made up of the seven Ps:

• Product
• Price
• Place
• Promotion
• People
• Process
• Physical evidence.

Each of these Ps works together to give your potential customers the best experience, helping you get more leads and sales.

The fundamentals of marketing started with just 4 Ps, but over time marketing has evolved, as have the fundamentals. Being able to evolve and adapt is a key skill of any marketer.

Important Marketing Terms

Along the way, and within this guide, you’ll learn many marketing terms that you’ll need to commit to memory, including:

• Marketing channel — what you use to get your message out, for example, direct mailing, social media, or email.
• Call-to-action — a prompt for the reader to act (for example, making a purchase, learning more, or requesting a quote). This could be within an ad, on a website or another piece of content
• Marketing funnel — the journey consumers take through your marketing before becoming a customer
• Lead funnel — the journey consumers take to become a lead
• Sales funnel — the journey consumers take to become a paying customer
• TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU — Top of funnel, middle of funnel and bottom of funnel
• AIDA — awareness, interest, desire, action
• Lead magnet — a free item (physical or digital) or service that is given to consumers in return for contact details
• SEO — search engine optimisation
• CRO — conversion rate optimisation.

You’ll see these pop up fairly often in marketing, and eventually, they’ll become part of your everyday vocabulary.

Where to Start with Marketing

The best place to start in any marketing campaign is with your target audience.

Understanding who you’re trying to reach, how to best reach them and how you can convince those people your business is the right fit for them is a key area of any successful marketing campaign.

Who you want to sell to will ultimately guide your entire marketing strategy, including your tone of voice, the marketing channels you use and even how your branding looks.

Once you’ve decided on your target audience (and created a few buyer personas), you’ll need to decide whether you’ll need a mix of marketing channels or just one.

We’ve found that relying upon just one, like social media marketing, can have positives or negatives for several reasons:

Good: Instead of spreading yourself too thin, you can dedicate a lot of time to dominating one channel.

Bad: If the social platform begins to underperform — as we’ve seen with Facebook’s organic reach for the last ten years — your business’ reach can decrease, and you have to (almost) start from scratch on a different channel.

How to Choose a Marketing Channel

Choosing your marketing channel is an important decision. Your decision will depend on the type of content your target customer consumes and where they spend their free time (are they reading magazines or browsing social media?), where your competitors are promoting themselves and the type of product or service you sell.

There are plenty of marketing channels to choose from, including:

• Digital Marketing
• Affiliate Marketing
• Search Engine Optimisation
• Performance Marketing
• Event Marketing
• Account-based Marketing
• Social Media Marketing
• Content Marketing.

Mapping Out Your Marketing Funnel

Once you’ve identified your target audience and marketing channels, you need to create a marketing funnel.

The typical marketing funnel focuses on three areas:

• Top-of-funnel traffic — people who have only just become aware of your product or service.
• Middle-of-funnel traffic — people who think they might need your product or service but are doing more research and considering their options.
• Bottom-of-funnel traffic — people who are nearly ready to convert.

You’ll need to choose a channel, or multiple channels, for each funnel stage. The channels you choose will depend on your goals at each stage.

You’ll need to fully understand what your customer decision journey looks like, too. For example:

• Do your customers need to see lots of reviews and guides before they convert?
• Will they contact you to convert straight away, or will they need to see a convincing offer, like a lead magnet, first?
• Once captured, do they need nurturing via email or remarketing?
• Could they be convinced to purchase again using a growth loop?
• Do you want them to become fans of the brand, turning them into loyal customers and building your brand’s reputation?

Figuring this out before you create your marketing strategy will give you a great foundation to work from, and you’ll find it easier to stay on track and hit your goals.

How to Learn Marketing

Now you know more about what marketing is, which types of marketing there are and how to put together a marketing plan for your business, you can now dedicate your time towards the many ways to learn how to be a better marketer, including:

• Attending in-person courses
• Completing online courses
• Earning a certification
• Becoming an apprentice
• Becoming an intern
• Joining online marketing forums and groups
• Attending events
• Reading marketing books.

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If you find you enjoy one area of marketing more than others, you can choose to become a specialist in that area.

For example, you could become a specialist in:

• Digital Marketing
• Pay-per-click Advertising
• Content Marketing
• Search Engine Optimisation
• Social Media Marketing
• Outbound Marketing
• Inbound Marketing
• Copywriting
• and more!

What’s Next?

• Learn about some of the most popular marketing methods from our yearly survey.
• Find out how to learn and refine your digital marketing skills.