Business Marketing Know-How

Large companies have their own advertising departments or farm out marketing chores to local agencies. Mid-sized companies may have one or two marketing chiefs on board, but still rely on external expertise from time to time. Small business owners or home-based entrepreneurs probably manage most if not all of their marketing needs. Depending on where you fall on this scale, chances are at some point in your career you will need to know a little bit about marketing strategies. Even if you are not directly involved in the marketing end of things, it can’t hurt to understand how advertising works so you can double-check or supervise the efforts of your in-house team or your outsource agency. Try to attend a few marketing meetings within your company or your community to find out more about various advertising strategies. For example, you may become interested in direct advertising, B2B advertising, network marketing, or Internet marketing, to name a few of more commonly known types. Some work better with certain types of business than others, but you won’t know this until you get a feel for the overall business. You also may wish to

job shadow an advertising executive for a day or two to learn more about the business. Or you can pick up a book at the public library or perhaps borrow a training video from the community college. You don’t have to study advertising in depth to learn basic methods of promoting a business or service. Then, given the chance, experiment with a few techniques. Compose a brochure. Post a Web site. Write a newspaper article. Make a few cold calls. See what works for your company or for your personal home business. If it doesn’t turn out as well as you hope, try something else. As you move through the learning curve, you will get better at this new task, and probably soon begin to see results.