Market Like A Teen

Market Like A Teen

Written by Sunny Peng

tents n o C 1. What is Marketing?

2. Role of Customers 3. Marketing Strategies 4. Digital Marketing 5. Bonus: Ecommerce

Important Vocabulary to keep in mind before diving in: Prospects— Potential customers Target Audience— Likely customers of your business, the people you’re trying to market your product to Retailer— A business that sells directly to the customer eCommerce— Buying or selling online Traffic— visitors to your shop Insights— numerical data for your website. This usually includes the number of visitors, total orders, and revenue.

In our modern world, marketing is everywhere, and you’ll eventually utilize it in some way.

Whether it's running your own business, publicizing an event, or advertising for an election campaign, the skills provided in the book will be indispensable. We’ll simplify marketing by providing real-life, applicable examples so that you can fully grasp the concepts.

You’ll begin by learning marketing basics, followed by versatile strategies and defining your target audience. Then, we’ll go through how to take advantage of different marketing channels and incorporate social media. Finally, there’s a chapter dedicated to guiding you on how to start an online business as a teenager.

Chapter 1: What is Marketing?

Marketing serves to attract potential customers to your brand. Unlike what many people may think, it entails much more than just advertising. Just a few of the many steps involved are researching, product designing, promoting, selling, and distributing.

Your ultimate goal as a marketer is to align your product/service with your customers’ needs and communicate that to them. To put this into perspective, it’s much easier to find out what your customers want and give it to them than to blindly mass produce a product and try to get prospects to buy something they don’t necessarily have an interest in.

Just to eliminate any misconceptions before we continue, I want to bring to your attention three words that are often confused— marketing, promotion, and advertising. These terms actually all have quite different usages. Below is a graphic to help you understand their relationship:

(LaunchEngineering, 2017)

in other words,

Marketing— A process that involves planning a product, its price, its place, and its promotion. These 4 terms are also known as the marketing mix (elaborated further on the next page). The ultimate goal of all marketing campaigns is to successfully bring a product to the market.

Promotion— One aspect of the marketing mix. The four main types of promotion include advertising, public relations, personal selling, and sales promotion. The goal of promotion is to make a product known to the public.

Advertising— A type of promotion. Involves paying a channel to showcase your product to a wider audience.

As a marketer, you want to put the right product in the right place at the right time. More specifically, this involves creating a product a particular group of people wants, putting it on sale at someplace those people visit regularly, setting the right price, and promoting at a time they want to buy.

An acronym people like to consult at the very beginning of their marketing journey is the 4P’s, also known as the marketing mix—

Product price place promotion For example, let’s say your company is planning to develop a reusable hand-warmer.

Product What is the function of your product?

Keeps hands warm Is there currently demand in your market?

As winter approaches, customers will begin to prepare for the cold weather by purchasing items to keep them warm What is your competitive advantage?

Product does not generate any waste and is more affordable in the long term

Price What is the cost of producing the item?

The materials are more expensive than a traditional hand warmer, but last much longer Is the price suitable for your target audience?

Yes, this product is marketed towards customers who prioritize cutting back on waste

Promotion How are you going to make your product known?

By advertising through fashion magazines and partnering with winter sports equipment companies When are you going to advertise your product?

During wintertime, when demand for staying warm is at its peak

Place Where will your product be available?

It will be sold at winter sports facilities and convenience stores in Northern areas of the US How will the products be distributed?

After production in designated factories, products will be sent to a central warehouse. There, the items will be packaged and distributed to various retailers.

The 4P’s will help you create a product that is both profitable to you and valuable to customers.

It will also help you determine the best selling location for your target market and what is the most effective way to appeal to them.

(Productfolio, 2021)

Chapter 2: Target Market

One major aspect of marketing is to know your customers well and maintain a relationship.

Remember that not a single product/service can be marketed to everyone. Even water– humanity's most bare necessity. People have preferences over different brands of bottled water, and it’s the company’s job to stand out and drive sales. In today’s competitive environment, positioning and differentiation are extremely important. That’s why it’s vital to define your target market at the beginning of constructing your marketing strategy.

A good exercise to get you thinking about the concept is coming up with a buyer persona: 1) Think of someone you know who could be a potential customer of your product. Just one person.

2) Write down their name 3) Find a photo of that person 4) Describe their interests, personality, likes, dislikes, and habits

eg) Let’s say I have a handwarmer business.

This is Sam. He’s a high school sophomore who loves to ski.

His family goes on annual trips to the skiing resort. He does not like to layer on bulky clothing and wishes to bring as little carry-on as possible with him on the trip.

Now that we have someone in mind, we can start thinking about other aspects of our sales, like location and strategy.

Ultimately, we know not every single customer we’re targeting will be exactly like Sam, but the buyer persona exercise helps us narrow down specific traits of our customer base we want to target.

In defining your customer audience for your enterprise, there are three main steps:

1) Segmenting 2) Targeting 3) Positioning Segmenting is to group customers into different categories based on various traits. There are many ways to segment an audience. Some effective grouping methods include demographic, behavioral, psychographic, and geographic segmentation.

For example, there are many ways to segment customers in the apparel market. Geographically, customers living in areas with different climates will be inclined to wear different sorts of clothing. You wouldn’t catch someone wearing a bikini in Alaska, or a puffer jacket in Hawaii.

Demographically, male and female customers tend to have different preferences for clothing items. Conventionally, males seem to be more interested in items like graphic tshirts or baseball caps, while females tend to reach for items like dresses or dainty jewelry. Psychographically, we could segment consumers based on their ideology regarding fashion. Some consumers demand quality, some demand sustainability, and others prioritize cost-efficiency.

Overall, marketing campaigns that focus on appealing to one segment over another tend to be more effective, and that’s where targeting comes into play. Targeting is to pick a segment(s) that best align with your product’s features.

Carefully look over all the segments you’ve come up with, and list the benefits of each. The most obvious way to go about doing this is by analyzing the monetary aspect.

Which segment could you profit the most off of? You also want to address potential growth. Do you see this customer base steadily increasing or would they just be temporary?

Positioning is to come up with a strategy to appeal to chosen targets and differentiate from competitors. At the positioning stage, think about what the special features of your product are. What sort of brand image do you want to portray to your customers? How can you differentiate from competitors?

Positioning maps are a good way to visualize where you stand in your market–

(Chegg 2011)

To create a positioning map, come up with two variables and place them at the ends of the diagram. Let’s take the fast-food industry as an example. Two of the variables could be healthiness and Uniqueness. Research competitors in your field, and place them in their most fitting positions based on the scale. Lastly, place your own brand onto the map. Your position on the map should highlight your competitive advantages, and keep the goals of your marketing on track.

In general, some things to keep in mind regarding the positioning map is that If one area of the diagram is extremely clustered, you may want to rethink your competitive advantage. How are you going to persuade your audience to choose you over your competitor? On the other hand, if one area of the map is quite empty… that may signal a new market opportunity!

Some other things to keep in mind One thing to emphasize is the importance of maintaining relationships with existing customers, as it is a lot less expensive than acquiring new customers. But of course, it’s good to have a mix of old and new customers in your clientele.

A common misconception that many business owners have is that they know what their customer is thinking-- but that is not the case at all. That’s why it’s important to make an effort to get into your customer’s shoes and obtain frequent insight, whether it’s through regular surveys, polls on social media, or follow-up messages after a purchase. Basically, get to know your customer base as much as possible, as it will help you make the most tailored decisions regarding your product.

Chapter 3: Marketing Strategy

As mentioned in the first chapter, promotion can take many forms. To increase your chances of reaching your intended audience, you want to make sure to have a variety of promotional channels.

The promotional mix consists of four main methods—

Advertising Public Relations Personal Selling Sales Promotion

Advertising involves paying a channel to showcase your product to a wider audience. Increases exposure for your brand. eg) A drink company pays Youtube to feature an ad at the beginning of videos. Websites pay Google to bump their site to the top of the page.

Public Relations involves getting favorable mentions from the media or a reliable third party. Builds trust for your brand. eg) A certain brand of medication is positively mentioned by a doctor on the news.

Personal Selling is to directly communicate with a target customer. Sales representatives can tailor promotions to suit each customer’s preferences. eg) Girl Scouts show up at your door to sell cookies.

Sales Promotions are time-sensitive incentives like coupons, seasonal sales, and discount codes. This may motivate customers to purchase items so they can take advantage of these limited-time offers. eg) Staples announces a back-to-school sale where all products are 50% off.

Another acronym companies often consult when bringing a new product to market is the SWOT analysis. (Yes, we love our acronyms here!) SWOT stands for

Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities Threats To help you visualize this concept, let's bring our reusable hand warmer example back:

Strength– What does your brand already do well? What are your existing competitive advantages? eg) Product is reusable, eco-friendly, more cost-effective in the long run Weakness– What aspects of your brand need improvement? What does your competitor do better than you? eg) Cost to produce product is higher, product isn’t suitable all year round Opportunities– What trends can you identify in the marketplace that you can take advantage of? What external factors may be helpful to your company? eg) Growing market segment for eco-friendly items, demand for product peaks during winter Threats– What are outside factors that can harm your company? What competition is emerging in the market? eg) A brand launches self-heating gloves, which can take away part of your target market It is extremely important to know your place in your market. Analyzing your competitors is just as important as analyzing your own product. This way you’ll know where you stand, how to improve and differentiate yourself, and what to avoid.

Your ultimate goal for utilizing all these marketing strategies is to drive action– this is where copywriting comes in!

Copywriting is persuasive writing with the intent to drive action. It is different from description writing, which is purely informational, or branding, which serves to create a good reputation for your company.

Copywriting is everywhere! Some examples are easy to spot on social media: “Swipe up”, “read more”, “follow us”.

Your goal as a copywriter is to give prospects compelling reasons to take immediate action. Below are some tips to help you do this successfully: 1)Wording plays a big role in copywriting. Instead of making your audience think that they are being sold something, convince them that buying your product will help them solve a problem. That’s why you’ll want to understand their situation and sympathize with them, and then offer a solution (your product) to their problems.

2)Avoid using the passive voice. Since your goal is to drive action, you need to utilize the active voice to sound more confident.

3)When writing copy, use an informal, conversational tone.

It is advised to write how you talk because readers will be able to feel more comfortable and comprehend more easily.

Likewise, you also want to avoid jargon. Even though it might make you sound more professional, that’s not your goal when copywriting. Using excessively complicated or exclusive vocabulary might repel prospects.

To conclude, instead of saying “please buy our hand warmer”, you should say ”this hand warmer is essential for any skiing trip.” Instead of saying ”the handwarmer incorporates a high vermiculite index”, you should say “Not only is the hand warmer effective at trapping heat but is also made completely from long-lasting, eco-friendly materials.”

Chapter 4: Social Media

Innovations in technology have had a great impact on marketing. Because everyone is interconnected by the web, one upload can reach a worldwide audience. I’m sure you’ve seen paid ads, whether it's graphics of a certain product popping up on informational websites, or how some links always seem to appear at the top of the page after a google search. These ads involve a company paying platforms for the opportunity to appear in front of their audience.

Paid ads are just one form of digital marketing. In this chapter, we’ll mainly focus on how social media can act as a powerful tool to publicize your product. Social media is a great way to market because of the control you have over all your content. Moreover, it is completely free to download but can achieve the same results as paid promotion.

Before you officially start marketing on social media, it’s smart to have a rough idea of how you want to organize your account. Starting off a brand new social media page can be intimidating, so it’s smart to get some inspiration.

You can look at other accounts in your niche and ask yourself: What are they doing well that you could implement? What are they doing not so well that you could avoid?

Some examples:

(Taken from @gen.she Instagram Feed in 2021) 1) Example 1 Clear color scheme and theme- purple, pink, blue, orange Feed consists of mostly typography graphics- easy to the eye Logo on every post- identifiable Improvement- might want to change up the format of posts a little more

(Taken from @stickyriceco Instagram Feed in 2021) 2) Example 2 Clear color scheme and theme- purple, pink, blue, orange Feed consists of mostly typography graphics- easy to the eye Logo on every post- identifiable Improvement- might want to change up the format of posts a little more

Remember that there is a fine line between taking inspiration and copying. For example, you can take inspiration from a certain account’s color scheme, and adopt a similar vibe, but do not copy the exact combination AND use the exact same list of fonts.

To summarize, some things to keep in mind for feed planning: Stick to a theme/color scheme. Everything will look more cohesive, professional, and pleasing to the eye. One method is to have a set list of fonts and colors to use and create a reference graphic for it. (As shown below) :

This is especially helpful for teams because it’s a simple way to keep your members on board and content cohesive.

Determine what type of content would work best for your page, and keep posting it. (or at least try to stick to it as much as you can) Is it plain photos? Graphics?

Typography? scans? edits? If you post content all over the place, people will lose interest as there is no consistency.

Create a posting schedule! This engages your followers and gives them something to look forward to. Too many businesses start posting and then stop abruptly. The followers will quickly lose interest.

platforms As a business, the main objective of social media is to generate awareness and connect with your prospects.

Because it is impossible to be active on all the social media platforms out there, it’s important to choose the best platform(s) to focus on.

Here is a breakdown of the most popular platforms used for marketing: Instagram Best for showcasing products Visuals + graphics 1 billion users Tiktok Best at generating views, impressions Short term publicity Popular with the young generation 689 million users Twitter Good for social monitoring/listening 330 million users Facebook Facebook groups allow you to reach target niche easily Popular with the older generation 2.85 billion users Platform with the most users After you determine your ideal platform, the next step is to decide what content to post.

When designing posts, it is important to prioritize the optimization of engagement, which is the total likes, saves, comments, shares, or retweets a post receives.

Although there are different strategies for increasing engagement across different platforms, one principle that is universal is to only post content relevant to your prospects.

Remember that people are a lot more likely to engage with what they can relate to.

That being said, steer away from posting the same content across multiple channels— post content that works best on each channel. For example, you want to mainly focus on image sharing and visually showcasing your product on Instagram, but social listening for brand mentions and responding to the audience on Twitter.

In building a brand, consistency is key. Therefore, try to set up a social media posting schedule so your audience has something to anticipate.

Analytics is a breakdown of different sets of data regarding your account. These sets of data are a reflection of what your followers find engaging, so you'll know what type of content to focus on in the future. There are two main types of analytics— post analytics and profile analytics.

Post analytics shows the total reach, impressions, and engagement a single post has.

Reach refers to the number of unique users that viewed your post, and Impressions are the number of times a post is displayed (the user does not have to view/interact with the post for it to count as an impression).

Profile analytics shows follower demographics (age, gender, location, most active times), and the number of overall accounts reached. It also tells you what type of content on your account is most successful.

There are a lot of conclusions you can draw from profile analytics, so take advantage of the data and adjust your content and strategy based on your findings! For example, if you see that 4 pm is the most active time for your followers, try to center your posting schedule around that time slot.

Hashtags are great for impressions and discovery— an Instagram post with at least one hashtag receives 12.6% more engagement on average.

Make sure to switch up your hashtags every post, since apps tend to shadow ban copy and paste hashtags as they might be misunderstood as bots. It’s also smart to have a good mix of broad and specific hashtags. Broad hashtags have a higher chance of being looked through but a lower chance of finding your specific post within that hashtag. On the other hand, a specific hashtag will be less likely to be found, but when it is, the audience is more relevant and your post is more likely to be found within that hashtag.

In your profile bio, make sure to include a link + a call to action. For example, if you have a shop, you could add arrows to drive people to your shop link.

(Taken from @dreamslikeco Instagram Biography in 2021)

Now you may ask, what if there is more than one important link you want to include? Let’s say you’re running a campaign, and you want to include the link to your qualifications, your campaign video on youtube, and the voting page!? Utilize launchpad applications like Linktree!

(Linktree, 2021)

Chapter 5: eCommerce

Now that we’ve gone over the online aspect of marketing, you might also be interested in starting your own online business. Whether you love knitting or creating digital art, having an eCommerce can turn your hobbies into a profitmaking endeavor. Not only will you have a unique side hustle you are passionate about, but you’ll also learn a lot about business throughout the process.

With the influx of small businesses moving online, eCommerce is a popular option because it’s less costly than a brick-and-mortar business and more convenient. Even for people who don’t consider themselves tech-savvy, there are many convenient options for creating your own shop. Sites like Wix and Shopify have many shop layouts and themes for you to personalize based on your own needs.

Although launching an eCommerce site does require a lot of planning, as long as you keep a few key considerations in mind, you can avoid common oversights.

The first step in planning your online shop (or any shop in general), is to decide what your product line is. You want to clearly list out the breadth and depth of your product line:

To put it simply, breadth is defined as how many items you’re selling, and depth is defined as the variety of each item.

For example, a clothing store with a wide breadth of products would include t-shirts, pants, sweaters, socks, skirts, etc. Whereas a clothing store focusing on depth would include only t-shirts but offer a huge variety of styles and different brands. Essentially, you MUST clearly list each of your products and the variations of each product that you decide to list on your shop prior to the initial launch.

Some other guiding questions you should be thinking about include: What materials do you need to be successful? (What packaging supplies do you need to keep in stock? What amount and variety of each item do you need? What raw materials are required do you need to produce your product?)

What’s your business model? (Are your products pre-made or made-to-order? Are they going to be all handmade or mass-produced?)

Once you determine your product line, you should start setting up your shop. The most important decision at this stage is to decide whether you want to sell on a marketplace

Etsy eBay Mercari Amazon or your own website

BigCartel Shopify Wix Ecwid

So how do you know whether to start your shop through an online marketplace or create an independent site?

Marketplace platforms are a great start for brands with no prior exposure. They take care of marketing by placing your content on customers’ homepages, which allows relevant audiences to discover your newly-launched shop. Although the marketplace does help you a lot with promotion, it is still strongly advised to create a social media account (specifically dedicated to your shop!) on the side as well.

You want to make sure you have control over your brand image and generate as much traffic as possible.

On the other hand, if you already run a blog with a good following and have the platform to direct your followers to your shop, (for example, if you’re a digital artist who posts weekly designs on your Instagram page and wants to start selling art prints or if you’re a fashion influencer wanting to launch your own clothing line), I’d say to go straight to creating your independent website!

One of the most important aspects for all small businesses is to establish brand presence in their respective niches, and setting up your own website facilitates that brand recognition.

By creating your independent website, you have complete control over the design, layout, and domain of your shop. A unique storefront and domain will both resonate with customers. To put this into perspective, there have been many occasions where I ask a friend where they bought a certain item from, and they direct me to Etsy. However, if they bought straight from a business’s website, they would tell me the name of the brand.

Both of these cases act as word-of-mouth promotion.

However, in the first scenario, Etsy is the brand being promoted. So more people will likely start shopping on Etsy and searching for similar items, but not necessarily your own product. On the other hand, in the second scenario, your personal brand is being recognized. This will generate more traffic to YOUR website, increasing awareness and sales.

Moreover, having a flexible website allows you to add various exclusive features to your shop, such as a built-in chat box so you can communicate with customers in realtime, or pop-up notices to provide the customers with promotions or discounts.

To summarize: Pros of a marketplace include...

More exposure (customers can find your products through a keyword search or a recommendation on their homepage) More user-friendly (has a step-by-step guide for you to set up your shop) Takes less time (fewer elements to consider)

Pros of creating your own website: More creative freedom (ability to customize the layout and features of your online shop to your liking) Facilitates brand name association (customers will more likely remember your brand and return to purchase more in the future) Lower fees (no commission taken from sales) More platforms to choose from (a variety of wellknown website builders can be used to launch a small business)- Wix, BigCartel Just so you can get a closer look at what each option entails, we’ll end this chapter by diving into two popular platform examples:

Etsy (Marketplace) BigCartel (Own Website) I have personally started small businesses on both of these sites, so my insight is backed up with first-hand experiences!

Etsy is one of the most popular marketplace options for small businesses selling original or handcrafted products.

Other marketplace platforms like eBay or Mercari are used most often by vendors to resell second-hand items, or other products from existing brands.

Setting up an Etsy shop is extremely easy. After inputting basic information such as shop name, billing info, and location, all there’s left to do is to start listing your products. Your shop layout is all pre-designed for you, and there is a “shop advisor” tab that provides tips for growing your shop. (Such as sending out follow-up messages or custom discount codes to customers after they receive their package!)

My favorite part about owning a shop on Etsy is Etsy’s exclusive app for sellers-- “Sell on Etsy”. You can view order information, attach tracking numbers, and view insights all from the comfort of your phone.

However, Etsy comes with some cons. Other than the general disadvantages of marketplaces mentioned above, another con for Etsy shop owners is that there is only one payment retrieval method: your bank account. I know that many teenage shop owners would rather have the money deposited straight into a money-sharing app, such as Paypal or Venmo, as these options are a lot more accessible and convenient for them.

Now, let’s discuss BigCartel, one of the most popular eCommerce builder platforms. BigCartel is great for beginner shop owners, as it has a good range of elements to customize without being overly complicated, and the set-up is very user-friendly. Some customizable features include the ability to upload your own font, choose your own color scheme, and include a slideshow of product images on the home page. You can also determine how many sections and pages your website has. All these elements help you create a unique and professional eCommerce site.

For the less creative people out there, do not fret if designing everything from scratch sounds like a pain— BigCartel has various template designs to choose from. For people wanting to make more in-depth customizations to their site, they can also directly edit the code!

Unlike Etsy, BigCartel also has multiple payment retrieval options, ranging from Paypal to a bank account to Stripe.

My ultimate favorite feature of BigCartel is the neatly designed dashboard for sellers. You can view detailed analytics, keep track of sales of products in each category, and easily add, remove or even hide listings. These edits made from the dashboard are automatically synced to your website.

Taken from the dashboard of my own eCommerce:

The only major con for BigCartel is the fact that a monthly paid subscription is required in order to access the most useful features (such as stock tracking and individualized product shipping profiles). However, BigCartel also has a completely free version for those who are financially tight.

Though of course, this option has its own limitations. (The major, noticeable difference is that only 5 product images can be added per listing!)

Congrats on making it to the end of the book. Hopefully, marketing no longer seems like an enigma!

You should now have a better understanding of how to market effectively by utilizing various concepts like the STP, the Marketing Mix, and the SWOT Analysis.

But the learning doesn’t stop here. To continue thinking about what you’ve read, start looking out for real-life examples of marketing around you. For instance, next time you go shopping, you can take it as an opportunity to learn.

When you decide to add an item to your shopping cart, think about the following questions. What aspect of that product prompted you to consider it? Why did you choose this brand over a comparable alternative? Based on the item’s packaging, what brand image is it trying to portray?

By keeping track of what marketing choices sway your own buying habits, you’ll be able to better create effective marketing campaigns.

MADE FOR TEENS, BY A TEEN A compilation of marketing insight accumulated from personal experiences and lessons learned