The Importance of Marketing for Your Business Success

Have you ever heard of Video 2000? Probably not.  But if you were raised like me in the eighties or nineties you’ll most likely have experienced the wonders of the VHS video cassette. Now Video 2000 was also a video cassette system, developed by Phillips and Grundig. It was in many ways superior to the VHS standard, which was developed by Sony. But Video 2000 went the way of the Dodo in 1988, while VHS continued to be used up and until the early 2000’s. Even now some people are still using VHS. 

Why did a superior product loose out to a ‘mediocre’ product? Blame can mostly be cast on bad marketing.  The launch date was postponed many times, Phillips couldn’t think of a marketing strategy to win over the important US market and overall lost out to VHS.

Another famous example of an excellent product losing out to the competition was the Sega Dreamcast game system. It had the best graphics, best processor, a couple of bad ass games. But it still couldn’t compete with the Playstation 2. Also because of a very bad marketing campaign by Sega. Nowadays, Sega is the publisher of the Total War game series, so they’re not doing to shabbily.

What am I trying to say in this blog? I’m trying to stress the importance of marketing for your business success. 

Whatever your business is, either a mom & pop bakery, a web shop or accounting firm, marketing should be one of your priorities in your overall day to day workings. Even if you’re working as a freelancer, your own brand or personality must be a focus.

Why is this? Well, simply put, nobody will buy your products or services if they don’t know you exist. 

For that to change, to reach an audience willing to invest money in your company or yourself if you’re working as a consultant, you need to have a marketing strategy in place. And actually use that.

Now, this should be obvious for anyone trying to earn some money with their own business. But to this day I am still surprised at how many business owners treat marketing as an afterthought. They will either do marketing half assed, putting out a Facebook Ad campaign here and there or willy nilly hiring a Instragram Influencer. Or ignore it altogether, at their own peril.

Marketing, marketing and more marketing!

At a certain level I can understand this. If you’re a designer or artist, marketing sounds like a dirty word. You just want to focus on creating great things. Or you can’t seem to find the time.

However, if you want to create a successful business, make marketing part of your overall strategy. You want to let the world know what you have to offer! You do that by focusing on a great niche and getting to know the basics of SEO so your ideal clients can find you.

Even as a freelancer you should think about your own brand and how you can improve your LinkedIn profile. And if you don’t have the time, don’t hesitate to hire an expert to do this for you!

Focus on 1 or 2 platforms if you have to do  the marketing yourself

If you don’t have the means yet to hire a marketing professional and don’t know where to start my advice would be to focus on a maximum of 1 or 2 online marketing platforms to promote your products or services.

These can be:

• A Blog
• A podcast
• A Youtube or Rumble Channel
• Organic Social Media Posts (through Facebook, Instagram and Tiktok for instance)
• Paid Google Ads
• Paid Social Media Ads
• Organic LinkedIn Posts. This is especially effective when offer B2B consulting services
• Email-marketing
• SEO, Search Engine Optimization

Pick one or 2 of these marketing methods and start doing the work!

Can I use AI in my Marketing?

Of Course!

It is precisely Online Marketing where AI Tools like ChatGPT, for example, have made a gigantic impact.

There are several ways you can use ChatGPT and similar tools, such as:

• Increasing your productivity
• Helping you with Marketing Research
• Researching your Niche, Keywords and other topics
• Email Automation
• Writing your LinkedIn profile and posts
• Writing Blogs
• And you name it!