I Work in MARKETING, not Advertising!

It is almost without fail that when I tell people that I do marketing for a software company there are two assumptions placed on me; 1) I am a technical person and 2) I do advertising, and send out spam.  This could not be further from my realty - I am not technical at all :) 


So, I decided to set the record straight on what Marketing really is, as a profession!  Marketing is a very important function of business,  maybe the most important.  In small organizations, marketing is confused with sales and in large organizations it is confused with advertising.  There are a lot of overlaps, but according to James Henley  and the MARKETING CONCEPT AND PHILOSOPHY, marketing has a very simple focus - meet the customers' needs at a profit.  As such, marketing is truly a function of every function in business.  


More specifically, there are a  number of activities that the marketer people have to be able to do - effectively:

1. Know who the customers are
2. Know what they want
3. Know what you can offer (products or services)
4. Know what you and the customer can afford
5. Communicate that you understand 1 through 4 in a way that adds value and gains attention

This is the core function of marketing, in its simplest form.  For each of these activities there are a lot of people and even professions that only focus one or two of them.  The most important aspect of marketing for any company is 1 and 2.  If you are a sales person an executive or anyone else and do not know who your potential customers are and what they want - FIND OUT and fast.  This knowledge it priceless.  You have to know your markets. 

David F. D'Alessandro makes a very clear point in his book Career Warfare.  To be indispensable, at any company, make sure that you poses some knowledge about how to do something that no one else knows how to do as well as you!  What else is more valuable than knowing who your potential customers are and what they need.  That is information that the CEO, VP of Sales, Chief Marketing Officer, R&D people and other functions in a company will want to know. If you play your cards right, they will ask you what you think! 

Going back to "advertising" for a minute. Advertising, Pay-Per-Click, Social Media Marketing, Search Engine Optimization and email marketing (spam) are all functions of communicating what customers want.  Imagine if the customers desired a new widget that did ABC and you spent millions on a TV spot, a new website and a Facebook page offering DEF... would you sell anything?  NO!  

Marketing is simple and it is not spamming people.  Marketing helps the R&D and Innovation groups understand what people want.  Marketing is not responsible for selling people things they don't want or don't need.  Marketing is the most strategic of functions, making sure that the company is going in the same direction as their potential customers.  Understanding what people want is hard work.  Making sure that you can offer them what they don't realize they will need in 5, 10 years is even harder.  


The solution, learn who your potential customers are and what they want.  Learn it well, and communicate it even better!  Be the Voice of the Customer!