Some entrepreneurs have certain misconceptions about marketing, which can be detrimental to their business. If you’ve just bought a franchise, for example, and hired a franchise marketing company to help you, you should be aware of the common marketing myths so that you won’t expect miracles to happen.
The following are the myths of marketing you should stop believing.
Marketing is advertising
No, marketing and advertising are two different things. You should know this right away before you ask your team to post more advertisements online and on billboards. Simply put, advertising is when you promote your brand and products through ads. Marketing, on the other hand, focuses more on product development, understanding the customer, promotions, and pricing.
Marketing is all about creating buzz
Although garnering the attention of the majority of the population through sensational promotions is effective, it doesn’t mean that’s all there is to marketing. You have to think farther ahead of crazy promotions and come up with a campaign that can last long after your promotional tricks are done.
Marketing is above a salesperson’s ‘pay grade’
If you think salespeople don’t know a thing about marketing only because marketing and sales are two different species, then you’re wrong. Yes, sales is different from marketing but salespeople know a lot about the latter because they’re the ones closer to the customers.
Because salespeople know their customers, they also know what they need. Marketing is also about figuring out what customers need, which is why salespeople are a great resource for figuring out the minds of potential customers.
Marketing is more about strategizing
Don’t ever make the mistake of believing this to be true. If you do, you might run the risk of coming up with ambiguous marketing strategies that have no way of checking if they’re effective.
Some marketers who believe in this myth often come up with broad marketing plans without carefully analyzing each step if it can lead to higher sales. For example, a company that sells hypoallergenic clothes online suddenly decides to include in its marketing plans producing brochures for customers. A brochure may be able to display all the benefits of wearing hypoallergenic clothes, but what use will it be if all of your products are sold online?
Also, why bother producing brochures when almost no one bothers to read them anymore? If you’re already focusing on online marketing strategies, why would you want to take a totally different route if it means increasing your expenses on something so passé?
Marketing, when done well, makes people buy anything
No matter how well you work on your marketing plans, if the product you’re trying to sell isn’t great, no one will buy it. What’s worse is perhaps some people will buy it and after seeing that your product is poor, they will share their negative comments online.
When that happens you’ll be forced to do some damage control, which is much harder than promoting your products. So, make sure that your products are topnotch in quality and attractive to customers.
It’s important for any entrepreneur to know the myths in marketing so that you can avoid them. Also, it’s by knowing what’s detrimental to your business that will lead you to find what’s beneficial to your company.