Marketing is a function in a business setup that can deliver customer satisfaction at a profit. It focuses on the satisfaction of customers thus results in acquiring new customers or keeping existing customers. Sales are the exchange of goods for money or simply the selling of a commodity. To achieve success in sales and marketing, the following techniques must be employed.
Branding
In sales and marketing, branding is the process of creating a unique brand for a product. A brand is an identity of a product that includes a product name, term, sign, slogan, design, or symbol. It is through branding that an organization’s product is differentiated from that of its competitors.
Advertising
Advertising is a paid form of non-personal promotion and presentation of ideas, goods or services by a sponsor. It is important for standardized products with very simple communicated features and are low in price. It is marketing communication that aims at encouraging or persuading a target market to take or continue with a certain action.
Lead generation
Lead generation in marketing is the creation of a consumer interest into products of a business. It falls under advertising but also include search engine results and existing customer’s referrals. It aims at making new contacts that may lead to you making a sale. The channels for generating a lead include e-mails, event marketing, and content marketing.
Web content
Web content is a textual or visual content that is published on a website. The visitors to a website will see the information posted. Web content in marketing, therefore, is the publishing of textual or visual content on a website with an aim of retaining or acquiring new customers. . The presentations can be news, e-books, info graphics or videos.
Market research
Market research is a marketing technique or strategy that aims at gathering information about target customers or markets. It is a key element that if implemented, keeps an organization/ business competitiveness over those of its competitors. It gives the most crucial information that helps in identifying and analyzing market need, size, and competition.
New product development
In sales and marketing, new product development is the process of introducing a new product to the market. The new product development takes a number of stages that include generation of a new idea, screening of the idea to eliminate any unsound ideas in it, the development of the concept and testing it, business analysis which determines the selling price, volume, break even and profitability, development of the product, market testing and lastly commercialization which is the actual launch of the product to the market. During the market test, a physical prototype is produced, adjustments are made where necessary, and customer acceptance is determined. New product development is followed by new product adoption process.
Social media marketing (SMM)
This is a form of internet marketing that utilizes the various social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and or Instagram to attain the marketing branding and communication goals. It primarily covers activities such as sharing of images, videos, and content strictly for marketing purposes. Organizations aim at having a large number of followings on the above platforms.