If done correctly,
yes, marketing can make you very rich. It is one of the most important factors in business as it is responsible for how your customer sees you, and then how you attain that client.
Importance of marketing for business
No business can exist without marketing.
A product or an idea sells only when there is a need for it. Marketing creates that need. Now, you might think that products like vacuum cleaners, air conditioners, laptops, mobile phones, etc fulfill a practical requirement in everyone’s life, a need that already exists.
But even this practical need has been created through decades of branding and soft marketing. Did people not wash clothes before washing machines exist or not prepare food when ovens didn’t exist? They obviously did. It’s just that sophisticated marketing over decades created an urgent need for these products, and technological innovation justified that need.
A business needs to invest in marketing to grow and increase revenue. During times of crisis, businesses tend to cut down their marketing budget. That’s a wrong approach. Regular investment in marketing is crucial to the long-term success of your business.
As a startup owner, you can leverage the power of marketing to expand into new markets, boost sales, gain and retain customers, and enhance your brand value.
In fact, with digital marketing becoming one of the most popular marketing tools, startups can get maximum benefits with minimum investment.
How marketing can make you rich
Can marketing make you rich? It certainly can. As an entrepreneur, you have to begin marketing your brand even before you create the product or launch your startup.
It makes more sense to create a need for your product before its launch. Your product must have a tangible market.
All the hard work, investment, and innovation will go waste if there is no market for your product. So go for soft marketing through various digital marketing tools like blogging and content marketing even before you launch your startup.
Marketing is all about creating a perception in the minds of the consumer. Your product can offer only a limited number of practical benefits. So to maximize sales, you cannot rely only on its effectiveness. You have to create an urgent need for your product in the psyche of the consumer. And that’s what creates iconic brands and multimillionaires.
Let’s take a look at a few ways in which marketing can make you rich:
- Increases sales
The only way to sell a product is through marketing. Marketing increases sales by reaching out to existing customers with strategies and incentives. Focusing on retaining the existing customer base is a must for startups and small enterprises looking to increase their income.
Marketing also lets you develop new customers by tapping into new markets which is a must for a company.
To put it simply, there won’t be any sales without marketing.
Effective marketing lets you charge higher prices on your products, even if the quality is average. Such is the power of marketing.
- Levels playing field for small businesses
Marketing, especially digital marketing can greatly level the playing field for small businesses.
With new marketing tools like social media marketing, you can reach your target customer base with minimal investment. Social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc enable businesses to reach diverse markets for little or no cost. This lets small enterprises fulfill ambitious sales targets despite having a modest marketing budget.
- Helps test the waters
Marketing helps you test the waters even before you have started a business. As an entrepreneur, you can leverage the power of digital media to create engagement for your prospective brand. For example, if you want to launch a new e-learning product, you can first test the market by blogging in your niche. Blogging will let you develop a customer base while giving you the opportunity to earn money. And you get a ready-made customer base for your product once you launch it.
Similarly, traditional market research helps you find your ideal customer base. It gives you an idea about those little tweaks and adjustments you need to make for your product to be commercially viable. In other words, market research sets the stage for earning profits without burning your hands!
- Establishes and promotes your brand
Effective branding can increase the value of your product manifold. When a brand creates a name for itself in the market, people do not think so much about the price. They prefer to buy something at a slightly higher price from a brand they know about than something at a lower price from a business they have never heard of.
Marketing is the only way to promote your brand, and in the process, increase your wealth!
Think of niches like beauty and women’s apparel where it is all about branding. The real value of the product of a company might not be very different from that of another.
But effective branding makes customers willingly and happily shell out a lot of money for products of a particular brand.
- Grows your business
There can be no wealth creation without long-term growth. Short-term gains can only help you for a while. But, what next? You need to expand to new markets and expand your existing customer base for future growth.
You also need to expand your product portfolio to make inroads into profitable markets that are currently beyond your reach. To develop a roadmap for future wealth generation from your business, you need to invest in marketing.
Digital media has revolutionized the concept of marketing. It’s now easier and more cost-effective to grow your business through marketing.
In the next section, we’ll look at the role played by digital marketing in wealth generation.
How digital marketing can make you rich
There is no formula to getting rich. But if you are dynamic, sincere, hard-working, and passionate about your niche, digital marketing offers you many opportunities to make money.
You can use digital marketing both to promote your business and to make money independently from your skills.
Let’s look at various kinds of digital marketing tools and how you can use these to increase your income.
- Blogging
Blogging is the most popular digital marketing tool for making money. A blog is an information website where you publish conversational and informal style posts on various topics to generate reader interest and build an audience.
How much can you earn from blogging depends on the number of followers or subscribers you can gather.
There are two ways of doing it. You can either build your personal brand as a blogger and make money directly, or you can use blogging to promote your business.
Using blogging to market your business generally involves writing niche-specific blog posts to reach out more people and expand your customer base.
You can earn through blogging by offering additional paid services such as online consulting or tutorials, by offering space for advertisements via channels such as Google AdSense, by selling products such as e-books and online courses, through affiliate marketing, and sponsored posts and products.
Getting rich through blogging requires a lot of hard work and patience though. It won’t happen overnight. You must be up-to-date with your niche and offer valuable content. Whether you are using blogging as a marketing tool to promote your business or simply to make money as a blogger, consistency is the key.
- Content Marketing
Content marketing is a very useful tool for promoting your business.
It includes creating relevant, consistent, and valuable content targeted toward a specific audience for your business with a view to driving profitable action. The ultimate aim of content marketing is to boost sales.
Content marketing is more focused and specific than blogging. It also has a wider approach and includes a range of material including case studies, how-to videos, infographics, guides, whitepapers, etc.
Content marketing is more result-oriented as it engages your target customer base at various stages of buying and leads them to your site.
The most popular way of making money through content marketing is the Amazon Affiliates Program. Content marketers earn revenue through the program via a specific sales percentage. You could also offer paid subscriptions to your content as a content marketer. You could also sell products related to your niche such as e-books or licensed content sold to various media entities.
You can make a lot of money through content marketing, but you got to be focused and have a clear strategy.
- Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is a great way for both individuals and businesses to make money.
As an entrepreneur, you can leverage the power of social media to reach your audience at little or no cost.
As a freelancer, you can use various social media platforms like YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, etc to promote your services and create a solid market.
You can become a social media influencer and get paid for promoting various brands and their products. The opportunities are endless, and there is no limit to the amount of money you can make. But you must be consistent and clear in your approach.
- SEO Marketing
SEO marketing or search engine optimization is a popular marketing tool to drive more traffic to your site by maximizing your rankings in Google search results.
With the Google algorithm becoming more and more complex day by day, SEO marketing has become a sophisticated field of digital marketing.
There is no limit to the amount of money you can earn through search engine optimization marketing. But you first need to drive maximum organic traffic to your website.
Once your site has started ranking well on Google, you can make money through Adsense or Google Advertising. You could also earn through sponsorships by inviting other brands from your niche to share their products on your site for a certain fixed remuneration.
You may also go for affiliate marketing by working out agreements with other companies that could benefit from exposure on your site.
The best way to get rich through SEO marketing is by setting up your own SEO marketing business. Once you are confident in the tricks of the trade, you can start offering SEO services to other companies. You could start with smaller companies, and then gradually scale your way up to larger corporations.
- Digital video content
Digital video content is the fastest way of promoting your business and boosting sales.
Small enterprises can benefit a lot from this feature. You could go for short promotional or explainer videos on social media channels like Instagram, Facebook, etc, and more detailed how-to videos on sites like Youtube.
Digital video content is great for establishing trust in your target audience and getting immediate results.
Digital video content is also great for freelancers. You could become an online video content creator and use social media like YouTube and Instagram to build a large follower base and earn money.
The Bottom Line
Marketing is a two-pronged tool to promote your business and optimize wealth generation in the process.
Post covid, things have changed a lot. Digital marketing has radically transformed the whole marketing scene. There are now greater opportunities for small businesses and freelancers to make more money by investing in digital marketing.
Since the demand for digital marketing has grown exponentially, you can reap the benefits by setting up your own digital marketing agency and offering services to others.
But you must be willing to invest a great deal of time and effort in picking up new skills. It’s a long-term process. You can’t expect to start blogging and become a millionaire within a month. You have to slowly build your brand by offering quality content consistently.
You must be also up-to-date on the fast-changing technology landscape. The field of digital marketing is evolving at such a fast pace that newer techniques and skills emerge every couple of months. You got to keep pace.
