You’re Marketing Without Even Realizing It!

By Jen Mylett

Marketing, in short, is the process of producing, promoting, and selling goods and services to potential consumers. It is essentially what connects businesses to their customers.

Everything that a business does or stands for is marketing. Whether they know it or not, businesses are marketing themselves 24/7. Let’s take Nike as an example. The way that they go about their everyday lives over at Nike sends a message about all the little things that make their company who they are. Here are a few examples:

• The way they pick up the phone/ their tone of voice
• The quality of the goods they sell
• What prices they offer
• How Nike is advertised on social media
• The level of customer service they provide
• The design of their website
• What other companies they associate with
• How clean their stores are
• How the employers present themselves
• What athletes they choose to sponsor
• What diction they use in emails
• The locations of where Nike is advertised

Overall, your business will either thrive or dive just by using the right marketing techniques. Going back to one of the examples, choosing which athletes (or clients) they decide to do business with is especially important.

Why would Nike want football star, Michael Vick, as a sponsor when they have athletes like Neymar Jr. and Alex Morgan? After all, Michael Vick is probably more well-known than the other two athletes, but the only difference is how those players market themselves. Neymar and Morgan are both highly respected and talented soccer players of this era whereas Vick is talented, but has a rough past with prison and dog fighting. Nike wants to look good by sending out positive messages to their consumers, therefore it was a good choice to sponsor the soccer players.

It’s all about the little pieces that ultimately create the whole picture. No company can succeed unless every little thing that they do to represent themselves is creating value and trust. It’s not about if you’re marketing or not, it’s about if you are doing it correctly.

"Our Athletes." Nike News. Nike, Inc., n.d. Web. 28 Jan. 2017. <http://news.nike.com/athletes>.