What Is Business Without Marketing?

One might say “marketing is primarily a creative thinking position”, I would have to agree, marketing is filled with many tools, concepts and strategies, but generating ideas and creating content is mainly the foundation to great marketing. To some, marketing is complex and difficult. To others, marketing is exciting and comes naturally. Marketing is a whole different world for many people, and is composed of a large list of diverse strategies that continue to grow with the assistance of technology. Social media marketing has become a hot topic and tool in the business world, it is known as one of the most used forms of marketing today. Social media marketing is not relatively new, but for some organizations they are just recently experimenting and utilizing it now. With over an estimated 2.3 billion active social media users in the world, it is becoming clearer that social media marketing is essential for any organization.

Marketing is about creating a product or service, communicating that information to an audience of consumers and finally, delivering the product or service. At least those are the basic stages of marketing. Metroland understands marketing, as well as the importance of an audience and communicating a message to that audience. Without an audience, you have no one to market your products to, and for Metroland, they would not be able to generate revenue. That is why Metroland is and continues to be successful, through offering services that continue to interest their audience they continue to earn their loyalty. You have marketing needs. We have solutions. Metroland specializes in local marketing and targeting local audience through their multiple channels and platforms. They deliver newspapers to 75% of Ontario households and provide access to over 5.6 million readers through their various print publications, community news sites, and many other online shopping sites. Metroland is a unique organization that specializes in providing an audience, along with targeting tools, platforms and ultimately all marketing solutions for any business big or small.

Even though marketing requires an audience to be successful, it is also composed of well over 50 different strategies and sectors that all vary depending on the business, industry, products, and services offered. Marketing strategies are changing constantly, as consumer needs change, new products are developed and technology continues to excel. So finding innovative ways to market products is becoming more essential as traditional marketing is no longer being as efficient.  People are used to the traditional, irrelevant information that they have no use for, this is truly important for any business to understand. Consumers no longer accept products or information that is not useful or relevant to them. This is where content marketing starts to take over, although it is essential to any marketing strategy.

Content marketing is “a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action”. Emphasizing on valuable, relevant and consistent content are the three important factors here. Providing content to consumers that is reliable, they can use and find true value in, is what makes a great marketing strategy. The overall objective of content marketing is to create online content that is useful to your potential consumers and help create a strong product or brand reputation that will lead to conversions or sales. When content marketing is done well, it shows others that you are trust worthy, you have great products and that you provide value to their everyday lives and once again, generates revenue.

With technology expanding at the rate it is, we have new marketing strategies coming out more regularly. Video marketing is becoming a popular trend and this is due to its collaboration with content marketing. Content marketing involves creating great content, but it also involves creating engaging content that leads potential consumers to discussions with others about your products and services. Metroland offers their network, audience and targeting capabilities, which allows other businesses to distribute content and communicate their message to consumers. That is why they remain one of the media industry leaders in Canada.

So how does social media marketing play into all this? Social media marketing is not new, it has actually been around for years. Due to the scepticism around social media, many organizations have chosen to distance themselves from it altogether. This has lead many organizations into confusion as to why other organizations are utilizing it and if it is truly working. Metroland Media is one of these organizations, an organization that is not currently using social media for providing products or using its platforms for other businesses to use with the assistance and technicalities they would provide. Consumers have to find alternatives to get in instant contact with them and find out what’s going on inside the organization. They are missing out on the metrics, analytics, and number of people to market to on these platforms.

Lessons for Others

Content marketing has become a main strategy in use with social media marketing. Creating great, valuable, and engaging content in your social media marketing campaign will allow others to share your products and discuss your brand which could lead to sales. Without anyone seeing or hearing of your product, you have no sales. Before social media was around, we had trouble controlling branding and straying away from content we did not want to see. Media channels were limited to T.V, radio and print, now we have social media where consumers can control what they see and influence how that brand will do. The data that is collected from social media also allows customers or competitors to find out key information on your organization, products and services.

Metroland media is an exceptional organization with diverse audiences, platforms and targeting capabilities. Their sales, brand and customer service could benefit greatly from the use of social media from a consumer and employee standpoint. It’s another channel with endless opportunities, consumer and competitor data and it can create new brand advocates or allow existing ones a place to discuss how great of an organization they are. Metroland has a long list of existing and engaged customers, social media will give them another channel to utilize, connect with their customers, create and build better relationships, resolve ongoing or new issues and build their brand to a level they may have thought it could never reach.

If you have concerns as to the accuracy of anything posted on this site, please send your concerns to Peter Carr, Program Director, Social Media for Business Performance.

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