Marketing is a way to spread the word, tell many people about a company's products or services and convince people to buy them. One way to do this is to show the product's features, the different aspects of the product itself, and benefits — how the product will improve someone's life. It's important to make the product stand out. This means it catches people's attention and appears different or better than other similar products. There are a lot of different marketing strategies. You can use direct mail, meaning sending advertisements to people's addresses.

There's telemarketing or making cold calls, calling people to tell them about the product. A cold call means the person has not previously had contact with the company. Some companies use door-to-door sales, visiting people's homes to tell them about the product. And there's also online advertising, such as banner ads, images displayed on websites, encouraging people to click on them to learn more about the product or buy it. Many companies use social media marketing, publishing content on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Marketers hope to have their content go viral, meaning get viewed and shared by thousands of people.

A product can get extra publicity if it is endorsed by a celebrity, used and recommended by someone famous. Or if it sponsors a sports team or event, meaning pays to have its name and logo displayed prominently. Sometimes marketing happens organically by word of mouth. Customers naturally tell their friends about the product. If newspapers are writing stories about the company or product and TV programs want to show it, then the product is getting a lot of publicity. Companies often try to measure ROI, return on investment. That's how many sales come in as a result of the money spent on marketing.

Sometimes marketing tries to encourage prospects, those are potential customers, to buy the product immediately. Other marketing strategies aim to gather leads, collect contact information for people who might be interested in the product, but will need a little more persuasion to buy. Finally, marketing can also be used to increase brand awareness or brand recognition. That is simply the number of people who know about the company. Let's turn our attention to advertising. Every day we see hundreds of advertisements, which are called ads for short. We see commercials on TV and hear them on the radio.

We see billboards next to the road. We see posters on walls. We might receive brochures and pamphlets on the street. When you open a magazine or newspaper, you see printed ads. When creating a printed ad, designers have to make an eye-catching layout. That means a design that attracts your attention. And write interesting copy. Copy in this context refers to the text of an ad. Both printed ads and websites might also include testimonials. Short quotes or stories from the company's satisfied customers. When a company publishes a series of ads over time, this is called a campaign.

Advertisements can have a few different purposes. For example, a company might run ads for a specific promotion or sale, like 25% off all products for the Christmas season. There might also be a special campaign when the company launches a new product, meaning makes it publicly available. One way that companies help people remember them is by using a slogan. This is a short phrase that describes the company or its purpose. For example, the slogan of Nike, which is a brand of athletic clothing and equipment, is "just do it." Another advertising strategy is using a jingle. This is a short piece of music used in TV and radio commercials. It's especially good if the jingle gets stuck in your head.

Before launching an ad, companies often do market research to discover information about their customers and potential customers. Market research can be done through surveys, questionnaires given to a large number of people. Focusing on the company's target audience, that's the specific group of people who the company hopes will become customers. For example, the target audience of a company that produces baby products is parents with children under two years old. You finished lesson 24. Now go ahead and take the quiz to practice the marketing and advertising vocabulary.

Above is the content collected by Xiao Wu from Qicai.com about Business English courses on presentations, meetings, negotiations, and phone calls. I hope you have gained something from listening!