Marketing 101 - The Essence of Marketing
The best quarterbacks in football, the best hitters in baseball excel because the game has slowed down for them. Great hitters see the stitches on a fastball. Great quarterbacks react to an open receiver in a split second. They see the game in a way that others do not.
Today’s marketing professionals face an onslaught of “new trends” and acronyms that change how marketing is practiced: Digital Marketing, CRM, Account-Based Marketing, SEO, CMS, SMM, Influencer Marketing, Data Driven Marketing, and Mobile Marketing. These terms make marketing seem like a rapidly moving target that is hard to define, justify or measure. While some are relatively new (I.e. social media, mobile apps) others are re-packaged concepts perceived as new when in fact the professional marketer has understood them for years. Learning new concepts and how they fit overall while understanding the traditional fundamentals slows the game down.
Marketing starts with asking and answering 4 questions:
- Who are we?
- Where are we going?
- How will we get there?
- What resources do we need to get there?
Understanding and communicating these fundamentals helps channel activities towards common objectives.
1.) Who are we? What’s our Mission, what products/services do we provide? What are our core competencies, the markets we serve, our position/market share in each? It may seem old-school, but defining your market (s) and understanding your market share and that of your competitors is still valuable data in developing future plans. How are we perceived (by clients, by competitors, by potential clients, by employees)? What are our strengths and weaknesses? What is our current brand/messaging? How willing is your company to be introspective in answering these questions? Being your greatest critic is a healthy start to developing future strategies.
2.) Where are we going? Where do we want to be in three years? Five Years? What is the Vision? Why? Is that achievable? Is the current organization capable of achieving the vision? Where are the opportunities? Setting these goals and objectives may be the easiest answer to the four questions, but it also sets the metrics for measuring future success.
3.) How will we get there? What strategies will achieve the vision? How do we grow, where, in what markets? What new products or innovations will get us there? What client, channel, branding, pricing strategies are needed? How will competition react? How do we position resources and competencies to get there? What messaging is needed, to whom and how should it be communicated?
4.) What resources do we need? Do we have the right organization and culture to achieve the vision? What data or tools may be needed? What data automation or services are needed? Market research, software tools, digital services, staffing, etc. evolve at this point.
The essence of marketing is understanding the fundamentals, adopting new innovations where they fit, achieving buy-in from the organization, coordinating the overall business strategy and implementing marketing plans towards the vision. Marketing is a business discipline, not a software solution. It is up to marketing professionals to understand the full range of the marketing discipline, their role where it may be specialized, and how best to communicate the holistic concept that is marketing.