What Is Marketing?

My experience as a business development professional is that a lot of time is wasted debating marketing’s objectives without first having defined precisely what marketing is. This has been true for me in large and small businesses,  hardware and software businesses, and in information services businesses. Is marketing about demand generation and driving leads and revenue? Is it about getting social media right so that revenue follows? Is it about establishing brand and getting the word out so that your target market knows who you are? Is it about t-shirts, coffee mugs, and tchotchkes?

One of Peter Drucker’s enduring definitions of marketing follows. “There will always, one can assume, be need for some selling. But the aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous. The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him and sells itself.” Drucker also says, “Marketing and innovation are the two chief functions of business. You get paid for creating a customer, which is marketing. And you get paid for creating a new dimension of performance, which is innovation. Everything else is a cost center.” Drucker had a knack for packing a lot of meaning into very few words.

Recently in my career, I finally found a simple, compelling marketing methodology that aligns everyone in the business around a common objective, as well as terms and functions, for marketing. This method focuses on the product management functions which help a business obsess about the customer while innovating. That captures Drucker’s principles nicely. The method I like is called Pragmatic Marketing. That is the name of the business as well. I know several companies who use them with great satisfaction. For an overview of their method and the functions that support it, click here: http://brev.is/M5H3. Adopting a clear, proven marketing method has been a big game-changer for me.

Using a product management oriented marketing method will also prevent you from the cataclysmic failures that can result from an “if-you-build-it-they-will-come” approach to product development. Unfortunately, I was involved in several of those earlier in my career. A company can insulate itself from the strategy of hoping customers will show up by taking a more proactive, “pragmatic” approach. Your customers won’t have all the answers, especially for highly innovative solutions. However, obsessing about your broader target market (not just your customers) AS you perfect the solution is way more effective than engaging with them AFTER you think you’ve done so.

Whether you opt to use Pragmatic Marketing or some other method, it is critical to develop a team understanding of the goal of marketing and its functions before defining marketing initiatives. Not only will it help streamline your efforts and make them much more effective, it will also help you explain to “upper management/the board/the CEO/whomever” what you are doing, how you are doing it, and why you are doing it. That will help you gain the support necessary to fund and sustain your critical, revenue-bearing marketing initiatives. It will also help you knock misunderstanding and noise out of the system which will lead to focus and better results.

“When you enchant People, your goal is not to make money from them or to get them to do what you want, but to fill them with great delight.”  Guy Kawasaki

Links:

Pragmatic Marketing:  http://www.pragmaticmarketing.com/

Drucker on Marketing:  http://brev.is/S8H3,      http://brev.is/Q8H3,      http://brev.is/N8H3