Three Facts About Marketing that EVERYONE Needs to Know

Marketing is everywhere. From TV to social media, posters and fliers to movie trailers and billboards, it’s almost impossible to walk down the street without encountering some form of promotion. And it’s not just companies either. If you’ve ever written a CV or filled in a job application, you yourself have done some form of marketing.

In this article, we’d like to share some basic marketing facts that everyone should know. We’ll be discussing why it’s important to learn about social media marketing, how it could help you in your career, and how to find the best strategies for you.

1. All Companies Are Marketing Companies

On the face of it, that statement might seem hyperbolic, but in practice most of a company’s worth is determined by the quality of its marketing.

When we think about the value of a company we usually think of the product and service they sell. That value fluctuates based on supply and demand, creating a system in which price is determined by what people are willing to pay.

It can be easy to think of the value people are willing to pay as something like an objective measure. In reality it’s anything but.

Take gold for example. The amount of gold that exists in the world will certainly influence the price of one bar of gold but only assuming people actually want to buy gold in the first place. If we had no use for gold – if nobody had a reason to buy it in the first place – then even if there were only one bar in all the world, it would be worthless.

All of this is to say that a product or service is worth what people believe it to be worth. Anything that influences that perception is, in a sense, marketing. Even the choice to make a better quality product only makes that product more valuable if this is successfully communicated to the customer.

When all’s said and done, whether you’re running a small independent business or you’re working for one of the biggest companies in the world, understanding this principle is core to making real money.

2. Social Media Marketing Isn’t Rocket Science

One digital marketing fact that doesn’t get talked about enough is just how easy social media marketing can be so long as you take the right approach.

Although there are areas where learning can be valuable – understanding the quirks of a platform and the return on paid adverts versus natural content for example – a huge amount of success on social media comes down to two important factors:

1. Understanding your audience
2. Being authentic

When people go to social media, they’re not looking for something as honed and polished as the latest Netflix production. What’s far more important for most online audiences is to be straightforward and trustworthy.

If you want to build an audience online you need to give them the sense that you’re a real person who’s worth listening to. Whether that’s via your blog about house cleaning tips or your financial advice YouTube channel, you want to give the impression that you’re talking to them because you have something genuinely interesting to share.

Once you’ve built that platform, that audience will then be far more interested in taking a look at the product/service you’re offering because you’ve already demonstrated that you can provide something of real value to them.

3. Nobody Has All The Answers

Of course, the most important marketing fact that everyone should learn sooner or later is also the simplest: there is no correct answer.

The best marketing strategies tend to thrive on their originality. It’s very easy to get a lot of people’s attention if you’re the first person to try something. It’s quite a lot harder to do when you’re the fiftieth.

This means that, beyond the kind of basic principles discussed in this article, most practical marketing advice is already a little out of date by the time you hear it. That’s not to say it’s useless, or that tried and tested strategies can’t work, but that above all else, originality is key. 

So whether you’re looking to start a brand new business or just to get better at promoting yourself to potential employers remember that the best strategy is usually the one nobody’s ever tried before.