Regardless of size, all business owners need to understand that marketing is critical to the success of their business. This blog provides insights to help them do that.

1. All Marketing, All the Time © Richard Hatheway - 2019 Page 1
All Marketing, All the Time
Overview
This blog provides insight on why business owners need to understand the critical
nature of marketing to the success of their business.
Marketing and Your Business
Marketing.
Along with sales, it's one of the critical functions of any business. Perhaps even the
most critical. Unfortunately, many business owners don't understand that. They think
that as long as they're selling product, they're growing their business.
While that is true, it's only true to an extent. That’s because a sale is the culmination of
everything that has gone before it. Whether that’s as simple as a walk-in customer who
saw your sign and then bought an item off a shelf, or a customer who was enticed by an
ad or coupon, or a customer who placed an order on your website, the final step is the
sale.
And yes, all businesses want sales. Lots of them, in fact. But sales don’t happen without
a lot of legwork and preparation.
Marketing Drives Sales
Marketing is critical to the growth and success of the business.
Why?
Because marketing drives sales.
Sure, without marketing your business may make some sales, but each sale is likely to
have a different cause, so you’re not sure what drove that sale or what prompted that
customer to buy your product. Essentially, you don’t really know what is working for your

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business and what isn’t, so you can’t repeat the steps to drive more sales. This method
is basically a hit or miss, throw it at the wall and see what sticks approach.
That doesn’t work, it’s not repeatable and it’s definitely not scalable. You also really
don’t know who your customers are. That’s why you should not only want to include
marketing as part of your business operations and strategy, but you must include it.
Marketing is what raises awareness about a business, a product, a service. Marketing is
what provides customers and potential customers with information about a product that
they may not have previously known about, or provides reasons and incentives for them
to try a product, buy a new product, or switch from one they’re currently using.
And just like in sales, marketing is not about doing just one thing and then being done.
It’s also not about doing the same thing over and over again and expecting it to continue
to be successful. That isn’t realistic.
Marketing includes all the creative aspects of your business, from the design of your
logo and website, to picking colors and fonts for your packaging. From the blogs you
write, to the posts and coupons you send out via social media, to the words you use in
your emails. Marketing also includes the different ways that you approach and interact
with your customers. This means that everything from your signage, to your store
layout, to which methods and channels you use to communicate with customers is all
considered part of your marketing.
Marketing is Much More
The more you become aware of what marketing includes, the more you will begin to see
and learn other ways that marketing can help your business grow and prosper. So
remember, for your business to continue to be successful, Marketing needs to be part of
everything you do, all the time.
It really is “all marketing, all the time”.
© 2019 Richard Hatheway – Catalyst Strategic Marketing
All rights reserved.