Marketing concepts are what businesses use to define their business model.
In detail, a marketing concept is how a business gets customers.
Most businesses need low cost customer acquisition to grow and thrive. You can only squeeze so much out of loyalty programs and giving your customers more merchandise and services.
They only have so much money.
After a while you have to start looking for more customers and that’s where you come up with marketing concepts aimed at getting customers to discover your brand, trust your brand and purchase from your brand.
Familiar Marketing Concepts
Traditional marketing concepts have included catalogs, letters, print ads, radio ads, TV ads, billboards, signage and a few others common forms of marketing.
Today’s marketing concepts include online forms of marketing like ads, sponsorships and a few different variations of those.
Another marketing concept is word of mouth or referrals. You can do some of this with marketing plans, but really you get referrals based on the quality of the work you do. If you have a satisfying service or merchandise and treat your customers well they will refer you. It’s a marketing concept that’s built into your product.
The Art of the Sale
Another area of marketing is face-to-face sales.
I’m a big fan of sales and I’m trying to get into it more. I want to learn all about how it works because I think it’s a misunderstood aspect of business. It seems that some of the biggest businesses in the world really understand sales.
Salespeople know how to find the right customers. They know how to introduce those people to the brand and they know how to earn trust and close the deal so that both parties are satisfied in the long-term.
When you consider the sales process in the real world and how effective it is it makes me think of business blogging and how the two mirror each other.
It’s why I think business blogging is the best of all marketing concepts today.
Business Blogging: The Best Marketing Concept
I like to think of a business website like an online salesperson.
But for your website to function like a salesperson you need to have all the elements.
The first is discovery.
Businesses use online advertising effectively today. It’s how they get people to discover the brand and to visit the website. That’s the introduction just like a prospect meeting with a salesperson.
Business blogging provides another form of discovery for potential customers.
Business blogging gives your business the chance to get introduction to new customers through search, social and direct linking.
Search engines love blogs. Well, they love good blogs, but that goes without saying. The reason is that blogs are a source of consistent content. Google and the others need content to feed to their users. Blogs provide that content.
When your target customer searches for something related to your business like a question they might have and they find your blog post in the results they’ll click on it and visit your site.
That’s the introduction.
It happens in social media when someone reads your post and thinks it’s worth sharing with their colleagues. It also happens when other site owners think your post is worth linking to on their blog or website.
Once you have people’s attention the focus turns to earning trust. It’s a big part of sales. Depending on the nature of your business the trust level will vary.
You don’t need a lot of trust with your local store to purchase a pack of gum, but you need quite a bit of trust when purchasing a business solution worth thousands of dollars for several years.
Business blogging earns trust.
When prospects read your content they get to know your brand. They see your point of view on the world and they see your expertise. They also appreciate that you’re helping them understand the industry and how there is room for them to improve.
Trust continues throughout your business website. People will read your About page. They’ll look at the services you offer and it all adds up to that person making the purchase decision.
It’s happened multiple times at Ghost Blog Writers.
Our website is full of information relating to the questions prospects have when they discover the brand. They read the posts to see our point of view. They read about the company.
By the time they use the contact form they are ready to get started on their own blog.
Conclusion
Business blogging works like a salesperson and because salespeople are often the best way to grow a business it makes sense that business blogging will be the best marketing concept in the future.
Business blogging handles all the levels of the sale. You get introduction to prospects. You earn their trust and you get them to contact you. It’s about long-term relationships, long-term business growth and long-term profit.
That’s a marketing concept every business wants to have.