photo: Erik Eastman / Unsplash
By contributing Author
Marketing is a pretty contentious subject. Most types of advertising are designed to interrupt your life to try and sell you something you might not even want to buy. Still, it is an essential part of virtually any business that can become the difference between an insanely successful project and a complete failure.
Marketing itself can not be reduced to a set of simple life hacks. It’s a very complicated and competitive field with thousands of ever-changing variables that require a lifetime of experience to master.
However, there are a couple of basic tricks that can help a beginner start making the first steps. So let’s look at what you should pay attention to as a business student going into marketing.
Time Management
It is true that the best ideas tend to come spontaneously. But sitting around and waiting for a glimpse of inspiration doesn’t really make for an effective business strategy. In order to be successful, you should learn to deliver even when conditions are less than optimal.
This requires strict discipline and solid time management skills, especially when you are at the very beginning of your career.
Burning out is a serious issue that is universal to all fields, not just marketing. Instead of putting all you’ve got into a one week sprint, find your own pace, and plan your activities accordingly. That doesn’t mean you can ditch your work whenever you want – just that your working schedule should be comfortable.
Give some extra attention to planning if you have other essential activities besides work. It’s not easy to juggle college assignments and a full-time job, but it is certainly doable. Prioritize your tasks, and don’t let deadlines pile on. If you get buried in your work – clear it up by any means available.
Look for an essay writer on sites like essayhub to take care of some of your college assignments if need be. If you get stuck on a particular task – look for a solution in reliable sources like a blog or a thematic website of some kind. Just remember that blowing your deadlines is no way to go.
Take Risks
Marketing is one of the most competitive fields out there. And when you are a small-time marketing specialist, it can be difficult to play on an even field with multi-billion mega-corporations. That’s where your creativity comes in.
Small businesses are much lighter on their feet than the corpos. Innovation is an essential part of their survival. Always look for new mediums to reach your customers as well as for opportunities to promote your product.
Don’t be scared away by marketing themes or strategies that haven’t seen much use before. The internet connects humanity in ways never before deemed possible. There are plenty of ways to be original in this new digital world.
Think Like a Customer
Unwanted sales pitches are unanimously hated by everyone. And it doesn’t really matter how well you hide them. The modern generation lives in a digital world filled with a sea of advertisement noise.
Therefore, customers have developed a tolerance for sneaky marketing techniques. Despite all that, you can probably name at least one marketing campaign that you didn’t find particularly annoying or maybe even liked.
This effect can be achieved in several different ways. But one of the most effective ones is customizing your marketing strategy to fit your target audience. Sure, you can try to cover as many people as you can with your marketing. But what you get in the end is a very generic, nondescript piece of info noize that will speak to no one.
Instead, look for ways to make your ads appealing to people who are already predisposed to buying and liking your product. You will get way more success with your campaign and a more loyal customer base at the same time.
In order to appeal to a certain segment, you are risking completely missing another. And that tends to scare inexperienced businessmen. But there’s nothing wrong with losing the attention of, say, middle schoolers if you are selling sports cars.
On the other hand, people like to feel special. And taking an extra step to make them feel like you are talking to a particular customer (not just a faceless crowd) can create a very strong bond.
Final Words
Modern-world marketing is a necessary evil. It is a bridge that can guide customers to your product. So any aspiring businessman should learn to use this tool. But they should also learn to use it responsibly.
Sure, there are many ways to abuse search engine algorithms and maximize your clicks. But marketing is about connecting with people. And you can’t do that when you are designing your strategy around a search robot.
