So what is Marketing?

We have noticed that on a well-known marketing website, there is an article with a similar title: what is marketing? This is a very good question and the answer usually ends up (as in the article mentioned above) being many tactics, such as advertising, branding, sales, service, pricing, email marketing, etc. It’s a good start, but it’s far from complete.

And that is one of the problems of the web. There are many websites with people claiming to be knowledgeable about marketing. In fact, if you go to search engines like Google and type marketing, you’ll get over 16,000,000 web pages. By the time you have so many people claiming to be marketing experts, it’s hard to know what marketing means.

Marketing is not tactics

When most people think of marketing, they think of marketing tactics. People associate marketing with tactics, partly because they’re fun. Advertising is fun, promotions are fun, and so is email campaigns and any other such tactic. But tactics, while they are the highlights of marketing, are similar to the tactics of sports. They are very important, but useless without having a solid knowledge base.

And so it is with marketing. Marketing is much more than tactics. Marketing is analysis, and a good marketing strategy is based on this analysis.

Marketing is all about customers

What kind of analysis are we talking about? Well, customer analytics, for example. Having a solid understanding of customers means having a solid understanding of how customers behave, their motivations, their perceptions, and preferences. It means segmenting the market correctly and not in the way that most companies think about segmentation (if ever).

It means having a deep understanding of their attitudes, their knowledge and their emotions. Without having this knowledge, marketing tactics simply take the wind. You’ll hope the tactics work, but you won’t know if anyone would want to pay attention or listen.

Add competitive analysis

We rarely see marketing sites deal with competitor analysis (we do!). Marketing is also about understanding the competition. But don’t just list who the competitors are. It means thinking about your competitive reactions, your goals and capabilities. It means also understanding the competitive forces in an industry.

Too often I see companies acting like they are monopolies, as if their competitors are unresponsive or have little interest in capturing a market. The Internet is a good example of this. How many Internet companies have actually given serious thought to the possible competitive reactions of entrenched players? Did any of them consider long-term competitive reactions? What about putting together plans that were robust for future competitive reactions?

No, marketing is also about competitor analysis, not just the “cool and fun” tactics that permeate the web.

What about capabilities?

Again, to think about marketing, you must also think about a company’s abilities to survive in the marketplace. I’m not talking about financial skills, although that’s part of the story. What about a culture, sales force compensation, relationships with distributors, suppliers, etc.?

Some companies focus directly on customers and even think about competitors. But these same companies often forget about their ability to provide what customers need or the incentives in their distribution system to get the job done.

No, marketing is not just about tactics, it is also about understanding your own company and your strengths and weaknesses.

So what is marketing?

Marketing is, in fact, the analysis of customers, competitors, and a company, combining this understanding into a general understanding of what segments exist, deciding to target the most profitable segments, positioning your products, and then doing what is necessary to meet that positioning.

How to fulfill a positioning? Well, this is where tactics come in. Branding correctly, advertising correctly, communicating via email, letters or whatever, but all done in a way that is consistent with the analysis that marketing is actually responsible for.

If you want to get involved in tactics, that’s fine. But think about artists, sports figures, doctors, and scientists, and ask yourself if in these other areas (which, by the way, are all just as creative as marketing), you only need to understand tactics. I think you’ll find that tactics alone won’t get you very far, but tactics coupled with a strategy based on great analysis will get you exactly where you want to go.

So before you hire consultants and network with other marketers (as suggested in this “other article”), make sure you understand what marketing is so that you become not just a tactical pawn, but someone who can ultimately run the entire marketing campaign.

Happy marketing!