Why Is Marketing Important? 5 Reasons for Your Business

Why Is Marketing Important? Find Out Here Today!

Why Is Marketing Important: no matter who you are or what you do, if you’re running a business, you need marketing.

But why is marketing important?

Because without it your customers will struggle to find your business, and you’ll have no control over how your brand is perceived.

A good marketing strategy won’t just help you to find and retain customers. It’ll also help you to ensure that your business is seen in the best possible light.

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But on the other hand, a bad marketing strategy can see you spending too much money without seeing any results.

Or worse, it can cause untold damage to your business’s reputation.

Why Is Marketing Important? When Marketing’s Done Well

You don’t have to look very far to find examples of good marketing campaigns:

• Nike’s “Just Do It” campaign saw their annual sales rise by $8.4 billion in 10 years.
• Absolut’s Bottle campaign saw the company grow from holding 2.5% of the market to selling 5 million cases per year – half of all the imported vodka in America.
• Apple’s “Get a Mac” campaign resulted in a 42% market share growth in just one year.

Oh, we hear you. Nike, Absolute, Apple – these are big names! Of course they’re going to be good at marketing.

But maybe they’re only big names because they understand marketing?

These are all examples of businesses who have taken control of their brand and their message.

They demonstrate why marketing’s important – get it right, and you can inspire millions.

When Marketing’s Not Done So Well

Bad marketing is forgettable. But really bad marketing is memorable for all the wrong reasons.

From tone deaf Pepsi ads to very unfortunate billboards, bad marketing can range from being cringeworthy to outright offensive.

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When people think about your business, what do you want them to think? Your answer may vary, but you probably want to be thought of as innovative, forward-thinking, cool, relatable, friendly and quality.

You know – positive things!

You do not want people to look at your business and say “What were they thinking?”

But this is exactly what bad marketing will do. If you lose control of how you’re perceived, you can do irreparable damage to your business’s reputation.

Can I Get by Without Marketing?

Why Is Marketing Important: so, marketing then: get it right and you can inspire millions, get it wrong and you’ll become a laughing stock, a footnote or worse.

It’s a fine line to walk! So is it better not to bother?

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Some businesses can afford not to market. When was the last time you saw an advert for a Rolls-Royce or a Bentley?

These guys tend not to market for two reasons.

First, their reputations precede them. Their names are already synonymous with luxury, and they probably always will be.

Yet more important than this – their products cost a lot. Marketing is for reaching a wider audience, and very few of the people who see ads for Bentley and Rolls-Royce will ever be able to afford one of their cars.

But unless you’re the Bentley of your particular industry, you can’t afford not to market.

It’s hard to find examples of businesses that failed because they chose not to market, as businesses that forego marketing tend to languish in obscurity. They’re forgotten as their customers tend to choose whichever of their competitors are shouting the loudest.

And that’s the main reason why marketing’s important.

If you don’t do it, your competitors probably will.

5 Ways Marketing Can Help Your Business Grow

So your business needs marketing. Are we agreed on that?

Yes?

Good!

Now here’s the fun bit. Let’s take a quick look at 5 ways marketing can help your business to grow.

For each of these, we’re going to provide an example of how this might look in action. Every example will be drawn from the world of PPC. That’s pay-per-click advertising and, in case you can’t tell, we’re huge fans.

Build Brand Awareness

How will people ever buy from you if they don’t know who you are or what you do?

Apart from anything else, marketing lets people know that your business exists.

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But there’s more to brand awareness than simply letting people know you’re here.

A good marketing campaign gives you control over your brand, your image and your message. It lets you communicate just what makes your business unique while hinting why your customers should choose you over your competitors.

As part of a PPC campaign you can place ads on the Google Display Network. This means you’ll be displaying images and banner ads on websites frequented by your target audience. You know what they say about how an image is worth a thousand words – a good ad on the Display Network can work wonders for your brand awareness!

Find New Customers

Making people aware of your business is one thing. Marketing’s second important role is to convince these people to buy from you.

Once again, it comes down to the messages you send.

What makes your products and services unique?

How are they better than those of your competitors?

What can you offer that nobody else can?

When it comes to online marketing, many people think of the top of Google search results as the holy grail. Get seen there and you’ve made it! With a good PPC strategy you can create ads that’ll be displayed prominently on the first page of the search results.

PPC is all about bidding on certain keywords. Long story short, if you play your cards right, your ads will get seen by people who are actively looking for your products or services.

PPC makes it easy for new customers to find you and to buy from you. This is just one of the 18 immediate benefits of this form of marketing.

Retain Old Customers

Why do giants like Coca-Cola and Apple still spend millions on marketing each year?

Surely everybody’s already aware of who they are and what they do. What could they possibly hope to gain from yet another multimillion-dollar marketing campaign?

Marketing’s just as effective for retaining old customers as it is for winning new ones.

Coca-Cola don’t advertise so that you’ll start drinking Coke.

They do it so you’ll keep drinking Coke.

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In the world of PPC we have these things called Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSA). These let you change your search ads for people who have already visited your site.

You can learn more about how this works, and how it can help you to retain old customers, with our handy guide to RLSAs.

Stay in the Mind of Prospective Customers

To buy or not to buy? It can take people a while to make their minds up, particularly when they’re mulling over a big purchase.

With a good marketing strategy, you can hit people at multiple stages of the buying cycle with ads designed to guide them towards that ultimate sale.

PPC makes this easy. There’s a process called remarketing that lets you show targeted ads to people who have already visited your site.

You have a lot of control over who you target and when and where you target them.

For example, say somebody views a product on your site, but doesn’t go on to make a purchase. With a remarketing campaign you can show people adverts for whichever product it was that took their fancy – perhaps with a special discount or free delivery.

This might be exactly what it takes to turn that prospect into a customer!

Immediately Compete with The Big Players in Your Sector

Successful marketing is all about reaching someone with the right message about the right product at the right time.

In theory, so long as you’re able to reach people where it counts with a message that strikes a chord with them, your marketing efforts have every bit a chance of working as those of the major players in your sector.

Yes, the major players in your sector probably have a larger marketing budget than you, but this does not necessarily mean that their marketing is bound to be more successful than yours.

A simple, no-nonsense ad can tick all of your customers’ boxes, and it could prove a lot more persuasive than something flashier by your more successful competitors.

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And in any case, PPC can help you to bypass this issue completely.

There are always new angles to try, or new keywords or segments to target. In this way, PPC offers as close as you’re ever going to get to a level playing field – with an intelligent strategy, your ads could outrank even those of your richest and most established competitors.

This opportunity to quickly compete at the highest level is another of the 18 immediate benefits of PPC we identified.

Are You Sold on Marketing Yet?

Hopefully, this post will have convinced you of two things:

1. That your business needs marketing.
2. That PPC is one of the most versatile, powerful and cost-effective forms of marketing out there.

As we mentioned above, we love PPC. It’s what we do.

They don’t call us the PPC Geeks for nothing!

You may be asking yourself the question: How much should my PPC budget be? We can help you to make the most of your marketing budget to enjoy all of the many benefits that an intelligent PPC strategy can offer.

Get in touch to find out how we can help your business become the next marketing success story.