Hey kid, I heard you want to get into marketing. Did you choose marketing because you thought it would be the easy route, at least compared to sales, right? Let me break reality to you. Marketing is a high-pressure job. It’s an area in business where there is often a lot of pressure and stress. Companies put millions and billions of dollars into marketing because they expect results. They expect campaigns to generate sales. But contrary to sales, your campaign isn’t cookie cutter. You can’t just call up customers on the phone and make a cold call. In fact, a huge part of marketing is finding out who your audience is, and if they would be interested in the product. After you find your audience you have to package your product in the most appealing way possible.

But don’t worry, the marketing gods have sent me as their messenger, all is well. Here are two tips to help you conquer market:

Specialization. Specialization doesn’t mean you only provide one service, it’s the strategy your business takes to showcase what you do best. What is your market, what is your niche? What is the problem that you want to solve? What do you do better than anyone else? There will likely be competition, how and why are you different from them. You need to give a better reason for a customer to buy from you than your competition. Your strategies should be made with consideration of what your competition is doing. 

A great example of specialization is that of McDonald’s, their customers are people who want to eat quickly – at a cheap price. Every product that they sell can be eaten quickly and is sold at an affordable price, they specialized and marketed accordingly.

Differentiation. Where you are going to differentiate yourself from your competition? In order to market your product as different, you must know what is unique about it. If you don’t know what your competitive advantage is you can’t compete. What is something that your business provides that no other company can do? When you identify what differentiates you it will increase your sales tremendously. In the marketing world, they call this the USP, unique selling proposition. A great example of differentiation is Starbucks, their USP is premium coffee, M&Ms USP is chocolate that melts in the shell, not your hand. 

The world of marketing may seem vast but let these words of advice guide you, young padawan.