In order to have a successful business, marketing is an absolute must. Marketing is a lot more complex than most understand it to be. The scope of marketing in it’s entirety includes marketing automation, advertising, public relations, promotion and sales.

What essentially starts as a pretty simple concept – getting a product to the hands of consumers – very quickly morphs into a complex balance and mixture of skill, intuition, finances, and luck. Here is a little more information on why marketing is so important for your business.

Marketing Opens Up Opportunity

Unless your company is already well established in your town, it is essential to boost your marketing efforts to ensure success for your business. Marketing gets the word of your product or service out to the general public. It’s important to use different means of marketing so that the news is reaching people of many different interest groups.

Upon the word getting out, higher sales are now possible. Once even a few people know that you and your product exist, they are far more likely to give you a try. If they like what you offer, they are more apt to tell all their friends. Deciding to invest in promotional materials can make your business a talking points for your existing customers and trusted colleagues among their cirlces. Providing corporate swag for employees and customers is what companies like You Ink It are best at so have a look if you need some inspiration. Once word of mouth gets out, there’s no stopping the potential cash flow from coming in. From this moment on, it’s then up to you to offer a quality product that people will want to come back to for years to come.

Marketing Builds Competition

As a business owner, you might not be thinking that competition for your business is a good thing, but it actually is. Marketing allows for the word about pricing and services to get out not only to consumers, but to other businesses as well.

Essentially, this gives you the opportunity to win the customer market. If you know what other companies who are similar to you are pricing their products at, you have a better chance of altering your tactics to win over the market.

Although marketing is essential to a successful business, it can be very expensive. After the first year of business, a marketing budget can be as much as 30 percent of the total operating budget and total sales for the year. This is the opportunity cost of having a successful business. This is also why it’s important to practice smart marketing and do what you need to do to ensure success without financial burnout.

Marketing is Multifaceted

As mentioned before, marketing involves so much more than advertising, which is the number one thing people think of when hearing the word. Marketing consists of research, planning, product pricing, sales strategy, public relations, and community involvement, among other things.

Does this sound like something you want to take on all by yourself? Most of the time businesses don’t, and resort to outsourcing their marketing to others who know exactly what it is they’re doing. The choice is up to you, but marketing is what will keep your business alive. Don’t neglect it.