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Marketing is part science, part art and is truly one of the most fulfilling roles you can play in business.

Today, marketing embodies science through data and predictive analytics; psychology through consumer behavior studies and applications; emotions through events and engagement that spark inspiration and excitement; technology that breaks down boundaries; and art that invites imagination, innovation, and creativity beyond limits. And, as you read throughout this book, marketing involves fun and games, too.

But even with all the technologies available to create compelling programs to take products to market and capture a consumer’s lifetime value, marketing is a challenging endeavor. Consumer expectations and demands change frequently, their attention becomes increasingly fragmented due to all the time spent on mobile and social channels, and they have more purchasing options than ever because e‐commerce took down all the walls and barriers associated with location.

This edition of Marketing For Dummies helps you get a solid and working understanding of the marketing strategies, techniques, and technologies proven for today’s markets and consumer‐driven world that can help you build your business, no matter your size or whether you’re in B2B or B2C.

To succeed in any field of business, you need to clearly communicate what you do in a way that’s personally relevant, compelling, and exciting and taps into your customers’ aspirations, values, and ideals. You also need a plan. You need to map out your journey to take a product to market, increase its real and perceived value, partner with distributors and retailers or B2B channel managers, and secure loyalty and evangelism from your customers – all while you’re continuing to innovate new ideas for products and services that will keep your brand current and set you up for future success. Marketing isn’t for the fainthearted, but it is for those who love fun, creative, and exciting challenges.

As you read this book, remember, everything is possible! The key is to craft a plan that enables you to work smart and efficiently with the resources you have. It’s like mapping out a journey with a specific destination in mind and staying the course instead of veering off at tempting detours.

This book will serve as your guide whether you’re a business owner, marketing executive, or small business manager and want to plan and execute your marketing yourself. It will also guide you to think more about big‐picture ideas and identify smart ways for getting the job done instead of stretching yourself too thin. If you work for a business or marketing agency, this book will guide you on what you need to include in your marketing plan to achieve the goals given to you and advance your own career journey.

About This Book

This book caters to every marketing function and role – from small business owners and managers to staffers of larger organizations who work on plans, programs, product launches, ad campaigns, printed materials, websites, and other elements. It’s also for those managing political campaigns, public health educators, directors and board members, museums, nonprofits, and the army of independent consultants who must not only be experts in their own field but also promote their personal brands to guarantee a steady flow of clients.

Ultimately, every marketer can benefit from the insights in this book about the consumer‐driven world in which you operate, the media tools and channels you have at your fingertips, the technologies available to manage, deploy, and measure all that you do, down to the individual level. You’ll also discover the key to executing successful customer journeys and experiences as well as direct, email, digital, and print campaigns that drive sales and profitability and, of course, how to do all of this while reducing costs and increasing efficiencies.

Foolish Assumptions

Even though we admonish you to avoid assumptions about your customers and markets throughout this book, we have clearly made some about you while writing this edition.

❯❯ We assume that you’re entrepreneurial and have the responsibility and desire to find out how to market a business or product successfully in your current business environment. But we don’t assume that you have all the technical knowledge you need to do great marketing, so we explain each technique as clearly as we can. We also assume that you’re willing to try new ideas, technologies, and processes to improve sales and grow your organization.

❯❯ We assume that you realize when a task or skill is outside of your competency and when you need to call on others – such as agencies, data experts, and designers – to help. Marketers often use outside services, and it’s important to build a long list of service providers you can trust to do good work on time and on budget.

❯❯ Of course, we assume that you’re willing and able to switch from being imaginative and creative one moment to being analytical and rigorous the next, because being successful at marketing requires both approaches. As you read this book, you’ll find formulas so you can run the numbers and do projections for sales, ROI, and cost per customer. Other times, you’ll be guided to use your imagination and think of fun and “guerilla” type of activities to help you communicate with emotional relevance and appeal. But most importantly, you’ll be guided to think like consumers think today and to understand how to appeal to the psychology of choice – the unconscious mind that drives most people’s thoughts and behavior.

❯❯ We certainly do not assume that you have an unlimited budget. You’ll find outlines and ideas for creating programs that you can execute on any budget and ways to engage customers that take price out of the equation for them as well as for you.

Icons Used in This Book

Look for these symbols to help you find valuable info throughout the text:

All marketing is real‐world marketing. This icon means you can find an actual example of something that worked (or didn’t work) in the real world for another marketer.

When we want to get you up to speed on essential or critical information you need to know to succeed, we mark it with this icon.

This icon flags specific advice you can try out in your marketing program right away. And because sometimes you need the right perspective on a problem to reach success, this icon also points out suggestions on how to handle the task at hand in an easy manner.

You can easily run into trouble in marketing because so many mines are just waiting for you to step on them. We’ve marked them all with this symbol.

Beyond the Book

In addition to the great content in the book or e‐book you’re reading right now, you can find more marketing tips and suggestions at www.dummies.com by using the search box to look for “Marketing For Dummies cheat sheet.” These, plus the numerous narrow‐topic books on marketing in the For Dummies line, give you lots of additional options for researching your marketing program.

Where to Go from Here

If you read only one chapter in one business book this year, make it Chapter 2 of this book, which explains the psychology of choice and how to trigger consumers’ unconscious minds for unthinkable ROI. Unless you know what really drives people’s emotions, joys, fears, anticipations, and aspirations, you can’t be effective in building a sustainable business founded on lifelong relationships with valuable customers.

Perhaps you have a pressing need in one of the more specific areas covered in this book. If fixing your website is the top item on your to‐do list, go to Chapter 11 first. If you need to increase the effectiveness of your sales strategies and approaches, try Chapter 16. Working on a direct mail campaign? You’ll discover the role of data and direct channels, such as email and direct mail and how to execute both successfully, in Chapter 10. Chapter 5 will help you build a marketing plan, and Chapter 8 will guide you on using and managing digital tools and tactics that can help you execute campaigns that build sales and profitability.

Whatever you do and whatever your role, this book will provide you with new ways of thinking and doing, all of which are proven to work for businesses, both big and small and B2B and B2C, throughout all industries. So start reading, get going, and let your marketing light shine.