Marketing is the business of promoting and selling products and services, and branding is an essential part of contemporary marketing. Before we delve into branding, let’s consider a typical marketing process, beginning with your business mission, vision, and values.
Mission, vision and values
First, a Philadelphia branding agency will want to know what your company does and why you do it. For example, do you have mission, vision, and value statements for your business? What is your business mission? What are your company values? Do you have a business vision? Laying these out will help the person or persons you hire better understand what you are seeking to accomplish through your business. Of course, they’ll also want to know about the products and services that you offer.
Market research
A professional marketing agency will do market research before developing inbound marketing strategies, recommending any branding to establish or improve your company’s market identity or running any marketing campaigns.
What kind of marketing research should you expect from a top-flight marketing agency? There are four primary types of market research: observation (simply analyzing customers and potential customers in action. One way that this is done is through cookies on computers). The three other primary types are focus groups, interviews, and surveys and questionnaires. Before you hire any marketing agency, you’ll want to know what marketing research they will conduct for you.
Market research will typically include a SWOT, 5 C’s, or PEST analysis. SWOT stands for strengths (internal and external), weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The 5 C’s are company, collaborators, customers, competitors, and marketing climate. PEST stands for factors that include politics, environment, social climate, and technology. Before you hire any marketing agency, find out what kind of marketing analysis they’re going to do, and how they’re going to use data analytics to help your business.
Once the marketing research is complete, it’s time to create your marketing strategy. Your marketing agency is there to advise you about your best target audience, setting marketing goals, and setting a budget for your marketing campaign. The next step is putting together your marketing mix.
Your marketing mix
What is a marketing mix? Marketing professionals generally talk about 4 P’s: product, price, promotion, and place. What products and services do you sell? Your marketing professional will want to know where your product or service is in its life cycle. Is your product or service new, or is it in a mature stage of its life cycle? Do you need a product launch or a relaunch? Just as human beings go through infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age, so do products.
Pricing always affects sales as the price is tied to perceived value. For example, a Rolls Royce has more perceived value than a Chevy or Honda. Marketing helps establish a higher perceived value for your products and service.
Promotion includes advertising, special offers, sales promotions, and can include public relations. The aim of promotion is to increase awareness, create interest, and generate sales.
Place or placement is about distribution. What distribution channels will you choose to maximize your sales?
Every element of the 4 P’s of marketing gets back to branding. Your product, pricing, promotion, and placement all affect your branding. A Philadelphia branding agency will help you with every aspect of your marketing so that you can maximize your sales and your customer’s satisfaction.