Marketing is Not a Department!

Marketing is not some special thing you do in isolation of the rest of your business efforts. Marketing is the face of your brand….anyone who comes into contact with your company forms an opinion – good or bad – about it.

Marketing is not selling – it is creating the right environment for sales.

Marketing is not spamming. It works best when the customer has given permission to be contacted. Also called permission marketing, which should be the only kind of marketing!

Marketing is not scammy. It exists to fill a genuine need. It helps build awareness, provide product information, help with insights and knowledge, and may entertain at times too. The best kind of marketing is where the customer says “this was created especially for me”.

Marketing is not just the 4Ps no matter how many times you may have read Philip Kotler. It is also the A in audience, the R in relationship, the E in experience and the C in collaboration.

Marketing is not a theory you read in a book. It is a state of mind. It’s a way to connect with like-minded people.

Marketing is not dead. For heavens sake! As long as people have needs and wants and desires, marketing will exist to fulfill those desires.

You may have outstanding skills in your core area of expertise – be it programming or design or writing or building – but if you don’t learn one more skill, the skill of marketing yourself and your business, then you won’t get the audience you deserve.

Marketing is not complicated. The best kind of marketing (and in my opinion the only real kind) is when you simply talk to people, listen to what they have to say and give them value.

Marketing can be encapsulated in the above quote by author Zig Ziglar.

Form genuine relationships. Give value. Measure results. Do more of what works. Congratulations, you have just started building a strong foundation as a marketer!