Shadowing Practice: Introduction To Marketing | Marketing 101 - Learn English Speaking with Video
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If you've ever wanted to know what marketing is, how it works, and how it applies to your business, then stick with me.
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Because in this episode, I'm going to be breaking down exactly what marketing is, how it all works, and why it's such an important, if not the most important element to business success.
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Let's get to it.
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Hey there, my name is Adam Erhart, marketing strategist, and welcome to The Marketing Show, where we help you grow your business, generate more leads, customers, and sales by making way better marketing.
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So if you're interested in learning the latest and greatest marketing strategies, tools, tips, tricks, and tactics, well, you may want to consider subscribing and hitting that notification bell.
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All right, let's talk marketing.
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Something I love to do is I fell in love with marketing years ago
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when I first got interested in figuring out why people buy
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and act the way they do and later how to influence and persuade, essentially affect, human behavior.
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Because whether you have a business or not, marketing happens pretty much every day.
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Anytime you try to convince friends or family to see a certain movie
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or eat at this restaurant or not that or basically try to convince them to do anything, marketing's happening.
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Also, marketing is really important to understand because you are constantly being marketed to by everyone from everywhere.
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From something as simple as someone trying to sell you a
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pair of shoes to something a lot bigger like buying a new house or moving across the country or even changing careers.
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All of this requires and uses marketing.
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So with all that said, let's dive into it.
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But first, let's cover what marketing is not.
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So once we've got that clear, we can cover exactly what it is.
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Now, I know when I first got involved with marketing, my understanding was pretty limited.
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I didn't really have a clear picture of exactly what marketing was, so I also kind of fell prey to the notion that marketing was advertising.
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Well, in reality, marketing isn't advertising, but advertising is marketing.
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Let me explain.
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Basically, marketing is a major business function that's made up of a bunch of other parts, one of which, of course, is advertising.
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But there's also a ton others, like PR, market research, social media, content marketing, search engine marketing or search engine optimization,
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pricing and pricing psychology, copywriting and one of my personal favorites direct response
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or direct response marketing and quite a few more so saying
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that marketing is just advertising it's kind of like saying
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that finance is just taxes or HR is just hiring people
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or legal is just not getting sued sure these are all important
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but they're really just one piece of the entire puzzle this is why
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if you're just getting started in marketing can seem pretty overwhelming
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which is why my suggestion is to find an area that you find interesting fascinating like say social media or content marketing.
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Start there, really get some roots and branch out later.
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All right so now that we've got that covered what exactly is marketing?
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Well as I've just covered you know
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that marketing is made up of a bunch of different sub -segments things like content marketing
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and email marketing and social media all the things we talked about but what exactly is the nature of marketing?
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Which sounds like some kind of documentary the nature of marketing.
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On this week's episode of the nature of marketing
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well one of the first things you learn in any first
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year marketing course is the four p's of marketing product price place
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and promotion product being the details around whatever product
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or service is being sold price being the price kind of obvious
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but there's obviously a lot more that goes into it than just
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that place is where the product's being sold and promotion
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which is kind of the fun stuff this is essentially how you're going to sell more of the product
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and what you're going to do to get the word out about your service
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and while all of that is accurate and true, and the four Ps do make up a part of marketing, well, I prefer a simpler, easier to understand definition.
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Marketing, in its most basic sense, is communicating value to your customers.
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It's essentially answering the question of your customers, why should I care?
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Marketing helps people solve their problems by clearly defining and delivering solutions, and really explaining the benefits of those solutions so they can get better results.
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Marketing is about connecting with people, understanding their pains and their problems and their frustrations, making them feel understood so
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that you can position your business as the solution to their problems
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and essentially just make them feel better
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and marketing is a really powerful force as anyone that's been
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in business for any length of time can tell you it's not always the best product
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or service that wins in fact it rarely is rather it's the product
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or service with the best marketing like it
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or not that's just kind of how it works
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which is why having good marketing is just so important
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so my favorite definition of marketing is that it's communicating value to your customers
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but there's another side entirely that's rarely talked about but still equally powerful and that's creating value for your customers.
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You see, marketing can create value and your marketing in and of itself can be valuable.
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An example could be a blog post that helps someone out even before any money has changed hands.
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Or an advertisement someone sees that brightens their day and makes them laugh whether they choose to buy or not.
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Or the way that a product or service is delivered, the packaging let's say, which is so luxurious and over the top
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that it makes the customer feel special just for having purchased it.
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You see, economics assumes that people make buying decisions rationally, logically, and with perfect information, but this is rarely pretty much never the case.
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We as humans are emotional, often highly illogical, and rarely have the full set of facts when making any decision, which explains why marketing is so important and so powerful.
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After all, if we made all of our purchasing decisions based solely on logic
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and utility and the value we would get from these products, well, the entire luxury goods market wouldn't even exist.
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But not all marketing is created equal.
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You see, when it comes to marketing, like when it comes to pretty much anything, there's good marketing, and there's bad marketing.
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Bad marketing is all of the reasons that marketing gets such a bad reputation.
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It's that hypey, spammy, over -the -top, sleazy, salesy, icky kind of marketing that we all know, we've all seen, and nobody likes.
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It's the stuff that looks cheap, makes people feel dirty even just looking at it, and promotes bad products or bad services that really helps nobody.
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It's the fake countdown timers you sometimes see on websites, the going out of business sales that never end, and the pushy promotion of useless products.
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That's bad marketing.
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Good marketing on the other hand helps customers achieve their goals, makes them feel better about themselves, and has the power to truly change the world.
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So my question to you is what kind of marketer do you want to be?
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That, that was a rhetorical question.
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If you say the bad kind, I got nothing for you.
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But if you say the good kind, and I know you did, then make sure to check out this video right here, which I've got linked up on the page, which is gonna give you even more practical
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and effective marketing strategies to help take your business and your marketing to the next level and way beyond that.
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Alright, so thanks so much for watching.
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Make sure to check out that video now and I'll catch you next time on The Marketing Show.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Introduction To Marketing”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: marketing, product, customer, advertising, value. This video has 87 sentences and 1346 words to shadow. The speech runs for 6:23. The speaker talks fast, about 211 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 90% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| brighten verb | /ˈbɹaɪtən/ | To make bright or brighter in color. |
| fascinate verb | /ˈfæsɪneɪt/ | To evoke an intense interest or attraction in someone. |
| illogical adjective | /ɪˈlɒ.dʒɪ.kəl/ | Contrary to logic; lacking sense or sound reasoning. |
| logically adverb | /ˈlɑd͡ʒɪˌkli/ | In a logical manner, with logic. |
| marketer noun | One who designs and executes marketing campaigns. | |
| overwhelm verb | /ˌoʊ.vɚˈwɛlm/ | To engulf, surge over and submerge. |
| rationally adverb | In a rational manner | |
| rhetorical adjective | /ɹɪˈtɔɹɪkəl/ | Part of or similar to rhetoric, the use of language as a means to persuade. |
| salesy adjective | Characteristic of the language or techniques used to sell goods and services; especially, resembling a hard sell; pushy. | |
| sleazy adjective | /ˈsliː.zi/ | Marked by low quality; inferior; inadequate. |
| spammy adjective | /ˈspæm.i/ | Resembling or characteristic of spam (the meat product). |
| strategist noun | /ˈstɹætəd͡ʒɪst/ | A person who devises strategies. |
| luxurious adjective | /lʌɡˈʒʊəɹi.əs/ | Very fine in quality and comfortable. |
| optimization noun | /ˌɑptəmaɪˈzeɪʃən/ | The design and operation of a system or process to make it as good as possible in some defined sense. |
| timer noun | /ˈtaɪmɚ/ | A device used to measure amounts of time. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| check out verb | To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.). | |
| branch out verb | To expand in the manner of branches. | |
| break down verb | To stop functioning. | |
| figure out verb | To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce. | |
| make up verb | /ˌmeɪk ˈʌp/ | To constitute, to compose. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | being marketed · is made · being sold |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | you've ever wanted · I've just covered · that's been |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | say, which is · page, which is |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 17 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, we've, I've. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: luxurious /lʌɡˈʒʊəɹi.əs/, optimization /ˌɑptəmaɪˈzeɪʃən/, notification /ˌnoʊtɪfɪˈkeɪʃn̩/, frustration /fɹʌsˈtɹeɪ.ʃən/, notion /ˈnoʊʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: illogical /ɪˈlɒ.dʒɪ.kəl/, rhetorical /ɹɪˈtɔɹɪkəl/, luxurious /lʌɡˈʒʊəɹi.əs/, optimization /ˌɑptəmaɪˈzeɪʃən/, advertisement /ˈædvɚˌtaɪzmənt/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like brighten, fascinate, illogical.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.