The Most Effective Marketing Principles | Marketing Rules

I have been in marketing and entrepreneurship for 15 years. During this time, I have never worked in a corporate company as a salaried employee.

If you think I'm a genius in marketing, you're wrong. I'm neither very smart nor a brilliant marketer.I grew up learning what not to do for a long time, so I made countless mistakes.

These rules have made me both a good entrepreneur and a good marketer.

So today I share these rules with you. Hopefully it benefits your business.

Marketing Principle (Rules)

 Marketing Rule #1: Don't Try To Be First

Don't be the first to try new marketing channels when they emerge. The probability of success in new and untouched areas is low. Therefore, wait for these channels, social media sites to take shape.

Also, be careful not to overdo it. Try to adopt a new event, site, trend early. If you notice that this site or trend is doing business, you can concentrate your attention and effort here.

Marketing Rule #2: Exploit

Every marketing medium gets crowded and cumbersome over time. Some will disappear and some will become useless to you.

For example, Facebook allowed you to send friend invitations to anyone in your e-mail address, which worked very well in the beginning. But it doesn't work anymore.

Digg was getting 100,000 visitors daily. Now the number of people entering Digg is at most a few thousand. Google Adwords used to be a cheap alternative to increase sales, but now it's expensive.

So when you find a good channel and site, exploit it to the fullest. If this site doesn't give you the results you want over time, turn to another medium.

Marketing Rule #3: Combine Sales and Marketing

If you really want to grow, you must be able to understand the big picture.

• Where does a person look when they visit your website?
• How can you sell to these people?
• How can you turn these people into loyal customers?

Therefore, a company's marketing and sales department should be managed by a single person.

These departments are divided into different offices etc. Although it should have a single-headed structure. Otherwise, inconsistency and disconnection occur, which negatively affects sales.

Marketing Rule #4: Don't Go Down In Crises

Markets fluctuate from time to time. This is how the market works. And when business dwindles, it often cuts the initial marketing budget. But doing so is wrong. It is necessary to act long-term, not short-term.

Marketing becomes more cost-effective in times of crisis. In other words, contrary to popular belief, you should double your marketing efforts in times of crisis and try to be two steps ahead of your competitors when the crisis is over.

Marketing Rule #5: Think Long-Term

Publicly traded companies operate to generate returns within the first 12 months. For companies established with venture capital, this period is between 1 and 3 years. If you want to beat these companies, you have to settle for more than 3 years. During this period, you use different and richer marketing methods and channels, so that your competitors cannot conduct such experiments due to investor pressure.

That doesn't mean you lose money in marketing for 3 years. It's means you need to become more creative. I bought, for example, a cost-per-click adware, as marketing costs increase every year. Because marketing is a long-term and requires patience. It may take years to bear fruit. However, when you show the necessary effort and care in this process, you will reap the fruits of marketing abundantly.

Marketing Rule #6: Don't Carry Eggs in One Basket

Good marketing platforms get crowded over time. This greatly increases the risk factor if you only focus on one channel.

So when a social media site, such as Instagram, loses its popularity, your business is also in danger. You cannot control algorithms. You cannot predict costs.

Therefore, operate in more than one medium. Since you can't identify the SEO algorithm and trends in social media marketing, you should try all the platforms and use the few channels that work best for your business, but never focus on one channel.

Marketing Rule #7: Consider Optimization

Marketing costs are increasing every year. You cannot control this trend. As much as you focus on marketing, you need to optimize your return on investment and spend. As costs increase, you can only survive with optimization.

For this reason, you should apply A/B testing every month and make a decision considering qualitative and quantitative data.

Marketing Rule #8: Pay Attention to Your Message

No matter how much traffic your website gets, it is very difficult to be successful if you can't convince people why they should choose you and not company X. The best example of this is Airbnb. Although Home Away was founded before Airbnb, but still offers the same service, today Airbnb is at least 10 times more valuable.

Behind this success lies Airbnb's more successful communication of its message, vision and mission. So without a good storyteller, success in marketing is extremely unlikely.

For example, you can call your customers by phone and use the information you get from them to develop an accurate message and marketing strategy. You should also edit this message in accordance with the time, conditions and platforms.

Marketing Rule #9: Don't Underestimate Statistics

Ideas are not so important in marketing!

Marketing should always have a data-driven approach. That's why you need to regularly check statistics, data. A method that works well today may become ineffective for some external reason.

For example, if your customers hate the pop-up page on your website, putting a cross to close that pop-up page can increase your monthly earnings and traffic by 10%.

Therefore, as long as you do not act unethically within a company, care about data and statistics and develop strategies accordingly.

Marketing Rule #10: Build a Brand

The best thing you can do is create a brand.

Whether corporate or personal, people identify with brands. From Tumblr to Nike, at every level you can think of, people love brands. It is also your duty to make your marketing last longer by branding.

A brand is not created tomorrow. Regardless of whether it is a large or small company, branding is about improving the image of the company on a regular basis.

Branding does not provide a return on investment in the short term. Measuring the value of a growing brand is also not easy. But in any case, branding pays off.

For example, when people buy sneakers, they don't need to type anything into Google. They immediately think of the Nike logo.

In short, branding is extremely important for your company to be successful, strong and long-lasting.

Marketing Rule #11: Protect Your Brand

It can be tempting to quickly gain money and followers at the expense of brand image. Never do such a thing.

Fewer followers, fewer visitors, less sales are acceptable as long as your brand's image is not damaged. However, once your brand name becomes dirty, it will cost you much more to make up for it.

Marketing Rule #12: Don't Look for Shortcuts

Everyone spends time figuring out the jinx of social media and SEO. However, such informal methods do not benefit you in the long run and may even result in penalties. Therefore, play the game according to the rules. “ You Don't follow the devil,” so to speak .

Marketing Rule #13: Don't Sell Bad Things!

Poor quality products that deteriorate at first use; You cannot be successful with services that do not benefit the customer or with a useless site. It is impossible to get anywhere with a product or service that does not benefit people.

So it's 10 times easier to market a product that people love and want than it is to market a product that people don't care about.

No matter how good a marketer you are, marketing something that people don't like and dislike is not easy. In this respect, first of all, your product and service quality must be high.

Marketing Rule #14: Bring New Pieces to the Old Village

Doing exactly what everyone else is doing won't get you anything meaningful in the long run. Taking action against the general direction often produces better results.

Going against common marketing methods may sound risky, but it is one of the best ways to grow in a crowded market environment.

Gmail is a good example of this. Hotmail and Yahoo were very popular when Gmail first opened, but Google developed the invitation method to use Gmail. In other words, a friend had to invite you to get an address from gmail at that time, which touched the feeling of "elite and uniqueness" in people.

Marketing Rule #15: Fear Your Dreams

If you are happy with everything you do in the marketing field, you are doing something wrong. So when you embark on a new marketing campaign, it will be healthier to be afraid and worried.

If you're not afraid, it means you're not pushing the limits. As Elon Musk said, "Your dreams aren't big enough if they don't scare you." In this context, you should do things that your competitors do not dare to do, and you should act ethically while doing this. Otherwise, you can damage the image of your brand.

In short, greater the risk and greater the reward. Only those who push the limits get great rewards.

Marketing Rule #16: Be Ethical

Don't even think about losing your customers for short-term gains. Always take actions in favor of customers. So avoid doing things that will disturb your sleep at night.

An example of this is forced selling, which affiliates use. These people send free products, provided that the customer pays for the shipping. What is not told to customers is that the same product will be sent every month. Of course, a new bill is issued every month.

Don't do that. Don't sell people fake Galaxy S12 products just because I'm selling Samsung Galaxy S12.

Marketing Rule #17: Leverage Phenomena

People are more attached to personal brands rather than corporate brands. Phenomena are a good way to attract customers in this regard.

Take care that the phenomena you will use are relevant to the work you do, otherwise you will lose money and time.

For example, if you are a real estate company and want to sell a house, a 20-year-old Youtuber named Enes Batur will not benefit you. However, if you are a computer store, Enes Batur's young and computer game-loving followers can revive you.

Marketing Rule #18: Believe in the Power of Video

People want to identify with you and your brand. That's why you should definitely integrate video into your marketing campaign. In other words, video should definitely be among the first 3 things that should come to mind when you think of marketing.

You should share the videos you produce on your own site and all social media. You should also measure whether video ads are effective because video ads can be more effective than text-based ads. Video-based advertising is generally more expensive, but the return is equally high.

Marketing Rule #19: Don't Do Everything Alone

Marketing is an ever-changing discipline. No matter how good you are at something, keep learning new things. Don't be arrogant and try to learn new things from people and share your knowledge with them. An intern you never expected can give you some great ideas.

Marketing Rule #20: Avoid Arrogance

Make sure that there are no knowledgable, arrogant, arrogant people in your team. Working with people who are open to innovation and negotiation will always contribute more to you.

Arrogant marketers are unaware of what they know, are closed to change, and hate experimentation. This is unacceptable for a marketer. In summary, don't keep toxic people on your team.

Marketing Rule #21: Small is Good

Social media provides many benefits. Being able to reach people more easily is one of these benefits. You must keep in touch with these people, help them.

You may not get the reward for this help right away, but the people whose hearts you have won will always come back to you, and they will advertise you for free.

Contribute to people writing positive things for your brand and establish a healthy, beneficial communication with people because everyone can talk about what they want on social media.

Marketing Rule #22: Test it

The methods that you think are working due to external factors that you cannot control and cannot control may become useless over time.

Pay attention to how the innovations in the latest version of software you think are reliable affect you. Maybe the features that come with the new update have made another feature that works for you useless.

In other words, regularly test the methods and software you use and find out if they work.

Marketing Rule #23: Leverage Your Environment

There may be people around you who are not your competitors and have a solid following. Never neglect to take advantage of the power of these people. This is a method that does not require financial capital to grow in the long run. Even if your product or service is not ready, having people who can market and sell for you from the very first day will be of great benefit to you until the product-service is ready.

Marketing Rule #24: See People Don't Read

Even if you write a masterpiece book, a large part of the society will not read this book. Therefore, when it comes to content marketing, make sure that your texts are easily digestible and practical.

Try to make things like page design, line spacing, color, font contribute to readability. Otherwise, even if you reveal the secret of the universe, if the article is not read, people will not read that article.

Marketing Rule #25: Pay Attention to Headlines

8 out of 10 people who visit your website only read the headlines. 2 people click on these titles and read the rest of the content. Therefore, pay maximum attention to the title of the content you write, try to throw interesting titles.

Again, you can measure what kind of titles get more clicks by doing A/B testing.

Marketing Rule #26: Go Global When The Time Comes

Competition in English content is incredibly high. However, since the competition is not that high in regions such as Asia and Latin America, people in these regions are more open to showing interest in the service and product you offer.

In other words, have your website, your content translated by someone else. Speaking for Urdu, it would be great to have an Arabic version of your website as well. This will give you even more attractive marketing opportunities. The interest of both the Syrians in our country and the rich Arab countries in our country makes the production of Arabic content a wonderful opportunity.

Marketing Rule #27: Be Prepared to Start From Scratch Every Year

If you think that the marketing methods that benefited you in 2019 will grow by doubling in 2020, you are a bit wrong.

Reviewing your marketing methods every year and trying to make things from scratch if necessary will accelerate your growth even more.

Of course, this does not mean throwing away the efforts, labor and work of the previous year. You should be open to new strategies by doing a continuous internal accounting and review.

Marketing Rule #28: Don't Put Unnecessary Pressure on Your Employees

You may have dozens of great ideas you want to test, but you won't get anywhere if you don't have enough people to implement those ideas properly. Likewise, don't give your employees loads they can't handle.

If you want to grow fast, an expert name should be at the beginning of every marketing campaign. This gives you time to refine each campaign and achieve maximum efficiency.

Marketing Rule #29: Work With Experienced People

There is no harm in hiring a new graduate or inexperienced person. But the time it takes to teach these people the job can slow your growth.

If you want more traffic and more sales to your site, you need to work with experienced, competent people. The ideal is to hire a successful person who has worked in a company operating in the same industry as you before.

Marketing Rule #30: Give Your Employees Time

No matter how successful and experienced a marketer is, it usually takes 3 months to find his own rhythm.

It would be right to be patient for 3 months for the person you hired to work at maximum efficiency. In these 3 months, this person must be beneficial to you in some way, do not ignore this.

Marketing Rule #31: Be a Good Storyteller

Storytelling is as old as human history. Today, as yesterday, a good story gets people to listen to you. Therefore, try to tell a story in your content. Content with a story in it helps people connect with you better. The stronger this bond, the higher your sales!

Marketing Rule #32: Recognize that Trends Are Transient

If you see that the market is following a course in the X direction, join this wave. Even if you don't like this trend, it will be a problem-free way to gain customers and make sales.

Google Trends is an effective tool to show you what is popular and where the market is going, try to use this tool well.

Marketing Rule #33: Optimizing for Profits

In marketing, the number of visitors per month is a good statistic. This is not the important metric.

When it comes to optimization and tracking, you need to make a profit-oriented optimization. In this way, you can make better decisions and grow faster.

As you examine the sales funnel , keep in mind that selling is not the end. Do not overlook the elements such as sales of the higher version product, re-shopping, cross-selling and buy-sell.

Marketing Rule #34: Follow the “Rule of 7”

In order for a person to become your customer, they must have heard and seen your brand at least 7 times. In other words, you have to appear in front of people on almost every platform.

When there are many companies selling the same products and services as you, people may be hesitant about where to shop. When your brand is more familiar, they will most likely prefer you.

So advertising on reputable platforms and trying to get people's attention is a good way to grow your earnings and your brand.

Conclusion

You may already know and practice some of the methods mentioned above. Despite this, try to create your own marketing principles and try to apply these principles within the company.

We wish everyone good sales and good earnings.