marketing communications Archives

Recently I did a talk for a lovely group of people. One of the things that came up in our discussions was how marketing is not just for business. There are so many other things that need marketing, because marketing is about fulfilling people’s needs and solving their problems and about communicating to them how you can do that. Hence, most things can benefit from marketing thinking and methods. Here are a few examples:

Schools can use marketing to attract students – and teachers – believe me, Ivy league schools don’t get the best students and teachers “just because”
Hobby clubs can use marketing to attract members
Sports clubs can use marketing to attract better players, or attract an audience (paying or not), or attract better (volunteer) coaches
People can use marketing to raise awareness for social causes
Public services can use marketing to create awareness and educate users
Government organisations can use marketing to raise awareness of their services, improve their image, or educate their users so that things run smoother
Activist groups can use marketing to spread their ideology and recruit fighters for the cause
Individuals can use marketing to get their dream job
Individuals can use marketing to get their dream partner ;)

The list can go on and on and on… I actually challenge you to give me an example of something that you think could not benefit from marketing thinking and methods ;)

Nobody Wants to Kiss a Pig!

However, at this talk, a gentleman asked me about their particular club, and whether it could be marketed to not only get more members, but to get younger members, as the membership group is getting older. I promptly answered that yes, that would of course be possible. And it is. What I did not say at the time, as it was not appropriate, was that [Read more…]

Content marketing is something that is close to my heart as a marketer. I am very much the content marketing evangelist and have spoken quite extensively about it. In my Icelandic online training program there is a very big module about marketing communications and as I am reworking the materials in English (my training will be launched internationally next year) the realisation just hits me again and again how large a part of modern marketing content marketing is.

Amongst other things, the marketing communications part of my training covers the marketing process, how marketing activities must work together for optimum results, and then I list a great big menu of marketing communications tools and activities that SMBs and entrepreneurs have at their disposal.

To make sense of the myriad of things out there, I have prioritised the options and given examples of what activities are most suitable for what types of businesses. As I went through the list of only the most important things to do in marketing, just the ones that hardly any business can go without today, it became increasingly clear that in today’s business world content marketing is not an option but a necessity. It is something that we are all doing and all need to do if we are in business, and its importance will only increase in the future. It is literally everywhere!

Below are a few places where content marketing comes into play – and many of us don’t even realise it! [Read more…]