What Do CEOs Need To Know About Marketing Fundamentals?

Marketing is by no means an isolated business function that takes place in its own silo. On the contrary, marketing pulls information from all sectors of the organisation. The reality is that marketing is the mouth of a business, and what it says can either improve or harm the public’s perception of the brand. For this reason, it is critical that an organisation’s higher-ups understand marketing practices, and know what marketing is being executed on behalf of the brand. This article explains four core areas of marketing that every CEO should know:

Branding

There can be no marketing without a brand to promote to the marketplace. A brand extends much further than a logo and a catchy slogan. A business’s brand is the culmination of its public-facing elements, and how this singularity is perceived by the general public. From corporate colours and brand typeface, through to tone of voice and choice of content, a brand comes through on every piece of marketing collateral by default – so it’s pretty important that a brand knows who it is before kicking off a campaign.

Audiences

Another marketing fundamental to understand is that of audience targeting. Gone are the days where advertisers would cast wide nets with traditional marketing techniques in the hopes of catching as may fish as possible. In today’s marketing space, it’s all about delivering value for customers with each transaction. The only way to know what someone will value is by getting to know them, and brands can do this by looking at analytics tools like Facebook Business Manager and Google Analytics.

Messaging

A strong brand and a clear audience targeting strategy is a good platform to build a rock-solid marketing system. Next is deciding on the message that will be sent into the marketplace. Which platform will the business be executing the marketing campaign through? What are the desired outcomes of the campaign for the brand, and how does the message being marketed add value to the customer’s life? Answering these questions will give your marketing campaign a clear direction and purpose.

Content

The trickiest part of marketing, by far, is the creation of the content that will be used as part of the campaign. We’re talking about the social media post images and wording; the blog article with a checklist; the pay-per-click advert tagline. Content creators – good content creators – are worth their weight in gold—source talented copywriters, graphic designers, and other creatives. You’re going to need them to create attractive content that leads prospective customers into the marketing lifecycle.

Marketing seems complex at first glance, but when broken down into its individual components – it becomes much less daunting.

Get in touch with the Digital School of Marketing

CEOs hoping to grow their knowledge about their organisation’s marketing functions can take a look at the Marketing Fundamentals course from DSM. We also offer unique skills development and leadership courses for corporate to take advantage of!