Why marketing isn't just about social media and emails

​At Think Twice Marketing, we often get contacted and asked "we need help with our marketing, can you post on Facebook and send out some emails for us?". And while we are happy to help, it does highlight a worrying trend that businesses have come to believe that marketing is mostly or solely about the online channels that can be used. For marketing to be a succes, however, it's a lot more than that!

Why marketing isn't just about social media and email marketing

When I graduated in International Business, a course that was very marketing focused, I went on to work for larger corporations in what could now be labelled traditional marketing. I accept that a lot has changed since then but what I learned and performed in terms of marketing included:

- Developing products and solutions that met the benefits of the customer
- Understanding customer needs and how the customers' mind works
- Integrating sales and marketing activities as a single unit
- Pricing a product inline with it's perceived value and in a way that maximises profit
- and much more!

The average social media marketer might not, for example, understand how the whole lead generation process should look, how power words such as 'now' or 'limited' make a difference, what the best colour is for a call to action button (orange is usually best) or that black conveys professionalism in artwork while blue conveys trust.

That's not to say that the marketer isn't smart, it's that focus is on how social media works and how content should be formatted and scheduled.

Marketing has required skills in many areas, so a video agency or an SEO expert isn't expected to understand how to develop a marketing strategy for a customer or why customers behave the way they do.

My book Psychology in Marketing and Sales discusses many other elements that marketing involves including the customer buyer journey, why we decide to buy a specific product or service and how we are influenced by different ways in which a product or service is positioned.

As a business grows, think twice about who you hire and how they can help. If you are serious about business growth then an expert in video, social media or email marketing (or SEO) should be considered, but having a marketing manager who looks at the bigger picture and brings the many marketing elements together should be a top priority!

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