Is Marketing and Advertising the Same Thing?

Advertising is one of the most important components of a marketing strategy and also the most expensive. Advertising constitutes sending the message to the public about your company, product or services. It also constitutes ‘behind the scenes' work, like the process of involving a formation of various strategies and coming up with a right one to target the viewers. This strategizing consists of planning things like placing ads, deciding what media outlet to use, what time, frequency etc. The advertisements are generally placed via mediums like television, snail mail, newspapers, internet, emails, radio, magazines, mobile messaging, flyers, billboards etc. The most popular is of course television, although advertising on internet is becoming increasingly popular too. The easiest way to differentiate advertising from marketing is to consider marketing as if it were a whole cake. If you cut the cake in pieces, advertising would be one of the pieces of that cake. The other pieces of that cake are market research of the product, product designing, media planning, PR, product pricing, customer satisfaction, customer support, sales and many more. All these components or pieces of cake should work independently but collectively in achieving the bigger goal i.e. sell product and build the company's reputation in the marketplace. Marketing is a marathon process involving many tasks that involve hours, sometimes days of research. The research part of marketing takes the longest time to complete, as it involves thoroughly understanding the behavior of people towards a product. Designing the product and developing advertising strategy is also a time consuming process. The only components that take less time are executing the advertisements and sales. Marketing can also be perceived as a medium between consumers and the company. Many companies often make the mistake of confusing advertising with marketing. They try to appear to be as big as companies like Coke and Pepsi in advertising but they simply ignore the work that goes behind that. A classical example of this is to take a look at the company logo. Many business owners are so hysterical about the logo of their company in their advertisements that they think that it will simply bring in huge sales. But what makes a logo work is none other than the reputation of the company. The logo must have a feeling attached to it and should truly reflect the company's values. We should also remember that some companies spend fortunes on advertising, which a new start up business just can't normally do. Rather than spending unnecessary money on branding your product, one should invest money and time in communicating to the consumers to address the expectations. After building up a reputation and growing a company, you can begin to think up these lavish ideas. Educating the consumers also helps, as it will give them an understanding that you know what your doing and you are the best at what you are doing. Smart marketers are aggressive in approach rather than passive. They provoke reader's minds by prompting them to do something, rather than just making them knowledgeable of the product. Smart marketers also bring home the names, addresses and contact numbers of people who are really interested in hiring your company by employing aggressive marketing. Thus, having a good marketing campaign speaks a lot about a company and their products. Advertising gives that finishing touch to the hard work completed by marketers successfully selling a product.

Top 7 Leadership Mistakes

Leadership and management skills are something that rarely come naturally for most people. But if you follow some basic rules and are willing to learn how to work with people you will have things running much more smoothly in the workplace in no time.Here's a list of some the things you should NOT be doing.

Neglecting workers

Your workers ARE your business and they have to be treated that way. Failing to send this message to workers can be a financial and productivity drag for any business. Our workers are people with feelings and emotions and have to be told in many ways how important they are to

the company.

Not being able to handle criticism

Just because you're in a leadership position does not mean that you suddenly become immune to making the wrong decisions. As a leader you have to listen to constructive criticism and make the changes necessary. If a worker cares enough to share criticism, the least you can do is listen.

Unable to delegate responsibilities

This is often a problem for small business owner / managers. We have to trust that our workers can do the things we have done for so long. If they really can't do the job because a particular skill is needed, then get them the training required or hire someone that can. A big part of leadership and management is about making sure that things run smoothly and efficiently, and that does not mean running from job to job doing everything ourselves!

Knowing everything

Many of the world's greatest leaders are people of average intelligence that don't know all there is to know in their industry. They understand that they can't possibly know everything and they hire people that do know everything! The success of any business is in the hands of its workers and the leading managers and entrepreneurs of the world all strive to hire the best in their field.

Procrastination

Putting something off till tomorrow that should be done today! Often procrastination is a result of having no plan or list of priorities. Look into time management and goal setting for more ideas on how to overcome procrastination.

Lack of focus

Obviously there will be things come up during the day that require immediate action that will distract us from our work, but we have to have a clear set of priorities to follow. Doing a little bit of everything gets nothing finished, causing stress and feelings of being overwhelmed.

Afraid to change

The ability to change in business is essential. Changes in technology, the way we deal with people, the way we present the business, and in every other aspect of running and operating the company. Holding on to old ways of doing things just because they've always been done that way is a sure way to lose business. If any aspect of the business can be improved then there has to be change, even if this means getting rid of a poor performing worker or product range that is no longer profitable.

As a manager or leader you have to treat your business like a garden. Continue to water, fertilize and weed your garden and it will continue to reap a quality harvest year after yea

By Kristine Geimure in http://www.woopidoo.com/