The Farmer - What is Marketing?

bysukhameister

299 followers

Updated 12 years ago

I'm going with my new self-appointed username - Farmer, so when you see the reference, you'll know it's me.

What is marketing? I'm going to leave a big gap in this post so as to give you a chance to ponder those three words. Also note that I'm gearing these blog posts related to marketing under the presumption that the reader has never had a marketing course ie;101 or managerial marketing in any form. If you remember from my first blog post I'm going to use my experience in WA as a way to reinvent myself by focusing on the fundamentals, my academic years. So I ask again, What is marketing? Scroll down at your leisure after you've given that question a moment or two, maybe even write something down.












Ok, are you back with me?

What did you come up with? Often, a common answer is the action of selling - the exchange of value - consideration ie: money, for something of value. Ok simply sales.

While "the sale" is what many focus on, I can must assuredly tell you that if that's all one thinks marketing is, then one's perspective needs some adjusting.

To the chase: Marketing in business is every activity that relates to the revenue side of the business in order to meet your customer's needs.

Besides the primary 4ps of product, price, promotion, and place (point of distribution) , marketing is how you answer the phone, how you dress, your attitude, the quality of your stationary, your persistence in performing daily tasks, the timeliness in returning an email, in a blog entry - your grammar, your spelling, in your blog - look and feel, market research, awareness of your own blind spots, awareness of your limitations, awareness of your strengths, recognizing opportunities, evaluating your competition, the skill set of your entrepreneurial team, and so much more. Every little detail that warrants attention that may contribute to a customer's perception about your business and therefore revenue is marketing as those attributes may directly or indirectly affect your revenue stream in order to meet your customer's needs.

Granted some of these thoughts like evaluating your business via a SWOT analysis cross a traditional definition of marketing - you're getting my MBA version - but staying true to the constant attribute of marketing - anything and everything you do - and some things that you don't do in your business activity that affects your revenue stream in order to meet your customer's needs is marketing.

So think about this a moment, and then go back through the various entrepreneurial activities that you've done in WA and think about each activity with regards to how it is or is not a marketing attribute that effects your revenue stream in order to meet your customer's needs.

The simplest way to define marketing is - marketing is a response to your customer's needs.

I think I've said that five times now. I do so for a reason. Perhaps you're familiar with the adage "build a better mouse trap." That idea dominates the thought processes of many a business. Sure, it might be cool if your mouse trap also doubled as a beer cap launcher but does that idea meet a customer need? How about this, if once the trap was sprung, and it disappeared - the trap and the unfortunate mouse just vanished! Poof! No clean up. Just gone. If you could bring that idea to market, well you wouldn't have to learn how to become an affiliate marketer. Alas, you would have met a customer need. The End.