One of the most entertaining things you can do in business is attend a meeting where a group of top executives start pontificating on the topic of marketing. It amuses me more to see people try to distinguish between marketing, advertising, brand, media, channels, markets, verticals, sectors, business development, sales, communications, public relations, etc. It never ceases to amaze me how something so simple can become so complicated, and how people can take a completely ridiculous stance with such passion and want to defend that position to the death. In this blog post, I’m going to try to demystify marketing and give you some actionable items that you can implement right away to drive better results.
Let’s take a moment and have some fun with definitions. The following two definitions of marketing come from the American Marketing Association. The first was a definition that was used from 1985 to 2004, when the AMA published the “revised” edition.
Previous definition of AMAMarketing is the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of goods, ideas, and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational goals.
Current definition of AMA: “Marketing is an organizational function and set of processes for creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders.”
Well…a quick analysis of the two aforementioned definitions shows that the error of leaving out the client in the original definition was corrected by the clear and emphasized inclusion of the client in the revised definition (I guess I won’t give up my AMA membership just yet). ). Let me make it clear that I don’t mean to mock academic theory or best practice, but I have little use for generic, omnibus, or blanket statements, as they tend to accomplish nothing of value, but simply create confusion between the ranks.
Let’s take a look at a few more definitions… Most of you know how much I like “druckerisms” and in all conscience I must quote you one more time… Peter Drucker’s definition of marketing is: “Marketing and the innovation are the two main functions of business. You get paid to create a customer, which is marketing. And you get paid to create a new dimension of performance, which is innovation. Everything else is a cost center.” Now we’re getting a little closer, but this is still too ambiguous for my liking…
From my perspective, the problem with marketing as a discipline is that the desired result is often lost in the vast expanse of its multidisciplinary nature. The reality is that marketing is really the aggregation of any activity that touches the customer and that is too much for most organizations, let alone to manage and execute.
So, at the end of the day, I think marketing is “any activity that catalyzes a sales opportunity” (my definition). Simply put, I want marketing activities to make my phone ring! I don’t care what the medium, market, or message is, if you don’t put a qualified prospect in a sales situation, it’s a waste of time, money, and effort. Before the Myatt attackers come out of the shadows, I’m not diminishing the value of brand equity, market share, mind share, etc., but simply trying to take a complex issue and make it real and actionable. .
If you’re running brand campaigns or mind-sharing initiatives, that’s fine, but keep in mind that in most circumstances, while these can be classically defined as marketing activities, these efforts don’t catalyze short-term sales opportunities. The litmus test of any good “gorilla marketing” effort is measuring the return on cost of sales. A great marketing campaign generates a high velocity of leads at the lowest possible cost during the shortest possible sales cycle. If you juxtapose this with the typical brand initiative, you’ll see that these two efforts are actually diametrically opposed.
So the goal of marketing is not to get caught up in theoretical debates and academic exercises, but to realize that the main thing is to keep the main thing. If you can’t put all marketing initiatives under the microscope and tie them to acceptable performance based on sales generation, then you may want to reconsider what you’re doing.