The Fascinating World of Marketing

By JULIE GREGORY

I have always found the world of marketing to be fascinating. Hence I have made a career out of it!

Marketing has existed for centuries, but the first planned marketing dates back to the 1920s. In those days, "marketing" was synonymous with advertising, and companies spent the majority of their budgets on newspaper ads, radio spots and billboards.

In the decades since we, as marketers, have learned that advertising isn't enough to build a successful business. Today's marketers must also learn how to use social media, create compelling content and develop products that customers want to buy.

Marketing is a field that spans many disciplines: psychology, sociology and economics are just some of the areas that overlap with marketing. Some people even consider it an art form — after all, it's not enough to know what will sell; we have to make it resonate with our audience in a way that makes them take action.

To do this, we need to know who our audience is, ie. how do they behave? Where do they live? What does their lifestyle look like? What makes them tick?

We then need to work out the most effective method of grabbing them with the right message at the right time via the right media. If we get it right, we see an increase in the number of enquiries received; how many more people physically visit a store; how many more hits a website receives and of course, an increase in sales – of products and/or services.

As we all know, the world of marketing never stands still. There is always something new on the horizon which makes our industry, and the opportunities and platforms available to us, very exciting.

The new addition of Threads by Instagram is the latest app to be aware of. It is still being rolled out but basically, it can be used to post ‘threads’ of conversations, reply to other threads and follow profiles that you may be interested in. In turn, others can follow you, reply to your threads and encourage discussion.

As always, watch this space for more updates in the ever-changing world of marketing!