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Marketing is a broad term. The definition is… the action of promoting and selling products or services, including market research and advertising.
Even in the definition, they include two large fields of research AND advertising. So if you are considering marketing and you can’t pinpoint what you should be doing, there is a good reason why. Marketing can be full of choices and learning where to invest your money can seem daunting.
Let me make it simpler. Marketing is REACH. The steps are simple… Find your demographic. Determine a budget. Calculate the number of impressions you will get. Get your message out there. Of course, there are different avenues for reach. There is social media, television, radio, billboards and SEO (etc.). Understanding which one will offer you the best return can be difficult. If you have clicked through our website, you have found that any campaign that leads to a compelling brand is always going to be the most successful. That is why we focus on branding at Farmhouse. But if you want help with your marketing, here is some advice and direction.
The first piece is this… anyone can do marketing. It’s not hard. With everything in life, marketing can be Googled. There are easy marketing initiatives you can start for your business today. These can be social media, sponsored posts, Adwords (etc). There are tools for delivering your message, and they are easy to come by. So if you feel as though you can DIY your marketing efforts, you are correct.
The second piece is this… which you may be asking yourself right now… So why would I hire a marketing firm? Any marketing firm should provide these values to you…
Connections for PR opportunities
More attractive collateral and assets
Help with storytelling
Savvy web executions
Smart social media approach
Perspective, Ideas and Strategy
Implementation and reporting
These are great deliverables. But as you shop for a marketing firm, it can be difficult wading through the business-speak. It can be hard to determine which one is the right fit for your business. A lot of times these decisions are made based on some arbitrary event. Such as… which agency has the logo you like the most. Or it could be something the principal promised during your initial consult. Bottom line, you should like the firm you choose, and you should believe in the principal. But you should also realize that each firm will deliver the above items in different varying degrees of competence. And if they are reputable, they will all be sound.
So now the third piece… So if they would all do the same work and I can DIY this, then why would I choose a marketing firm? To that, I would say… precisely. Your business doesn’t need marketing as much as it needs branding. And this comes from a firm that had its origins in marketing. We found early on that marketing efforts were falling short for businesses that did not have a strong brand. So we make sure any business we work with invests in their brand before spending money on marketing. Let’s create advocates and not customers. Let’s have people “buy-in” even before they buy. This builds more long-term success for the business. We can always begin a marketing campaign, but let’s make sure the brand we drive consumers to is worth the cost of the campaign.
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