5 Marketing Lessons to Learn from Successful Businesses

How do you think your marketing efforts are going? Do you think you’re succeeding?

No matter how successful your brand, there’s always someone better. And unless you’re working at Apple, you’re not the most successful business out there.

So how do people become successful? What’s the magic ticket that turns your business into a financial powerhouse? Well, there isn’t one.

Successful businesses are well-oiled machines. A collection of moving parts working together.

Let’s talk about Apple again. The tech giants are renowned for their marketing efforts. For them, marketing doesn’t mean showcasing their product to the world. They mean converting visitors to customers.

 They recently became the first trillion dollar company. Coincidence? Not a chance. From the iPod Mini commercials to today’s iPhone spots, Apple has dominated its marketing.

Taking tips from the Apples of the world leads to marketing success and your brand can emulate many of Apple’s techniques. Don’t believe us? Today, we’re bringing you 5 marketing lessons to learn from the most successful businesses.

1. Create the right content for the right people

Content is everywhere. Written content, video, pictures, charts, graphs, infographics and more; content is everything your brand produces.

If you’re looking for extreme growth, you need extreme amounts of content.

Strong content gets your brand in front of more people. Everything you create drives more advertising potential. Create a strong commercial? Perfect, popular commercials go viral on YouTube. Is your written content strong? Great, now your blog blows up.

In the internet age, strong content creates more views, which create more shares, which creates even more views, and the cycle continues.

Creating strong content is all about playing to your demographics. Who buys your product?

Your brand needs to focus on your own demographics. Create content that focuses on your potential consumers. Do you sell to middle-aged women? Or are you targeting millennials under 25? Know your audience and content ideas will come naturally.

2. Sell your brand image

Your company obviously sells a product or service; maybe you selling shoes, maybe you sell consultancy services.

That’s your product and you want to highlight your product, right?

Whilst, yes, you want to sell your product to consumers, selling isn’t the path to success. Let’s look at Apple. Apple isn’t selling their products, they’re selling both the Apple ecosystem and their brand.

People think of the Apple brand as environmentally responsible, progressive, helpful, committed to consumers, and transparent.

Those traits aren’t products, but they do help Apple sell iPhones, Apple Watches, and other devices.

Consumers care about your company’s brand values. 64% of consumers build relationships with brands that share their values, so build a brand image that speaks to your demographic. Consumers who love your brand will buy your products.

3. ‘The customer is always right’

Yes, it’s an old adage and even a bit of a cliché. However, the idea that the customer is always right still holds true for many successful companies. Though we can probably create our own adage that keeps with the times.

Treat every customer like they’re your only customer.

Without sounding like a broken record, we need to talk about Apple. Yes, again. The tech giants have a reputation for excellent customer service; stories about their exceptional customer service litter the internet.

Apple routinely replaces broken user devices, even if the user was at fault for the damage. Customers walk away amazed and tell all their friends (both in-person and online) about the exceptional service.

Your brand needs to treat customers the same way. If you don’t feel like giving away products, loyalty rewards are an excellent way to keep your consumers interested in your brand.

4. Do your market research

There’s a good chance your product or service doesn’t appeal to the masses but that’s not a knock against your product. Not many things have true mass market appeal, so you’re not marketing to the mass market. And if you are, stop right now.

Think about the following:

• Who uses your brand?
• Do you actually know?
• Are they your target demographic?
• How old are they?
• How much money do they make?
• Where do they shop?
• What kind of cars do they drive?
• Do they care about the environment?

You need to understand your audience. Today’s successful companies rely on social media, internet cookies, and more to collect huge data sets of demographic information. Start utilizing third-party marketing programs to collect your own data.

This would also help in successful deliveries. Once you have a client on board, you need to study him inside out. This is one of the biggest factors in being able to deliver results to your customers.

5. Consistency is key

People like consistency. They want to know what to expect. Your brand needs to offer people a consistent experience, and not just a consistent product experience.

Brand consistency refers to everything we’ve touched on above, and more. You need consistent products, content, image, customer relations, etc.

Imagine if Google’s search worked half the time. No one would trust Google. Likewise if Comcast’s internet cut out every few minutes (and when it does cut out, people get angry). Or if Apple suddenly endorsed large-scale coal mining.

When you devise your brand image, stick to it. Likewise, for your products, consumer-relations, etc.

Putting it all together

Successful brands combine the above lessons into one cohesive marketing strategy. Your brand needs to emulate this formula. You won’t succeed without a targeted strategy.

So this year, take your marketing strategy to the next level. Take those cues from big businesses, after all, there’s a reason why certain companies are so successful.