Marketing's true value-add is hiding in plain sight

Lots of marketing stuff makes me happy. A properly-integrated campaign. Consistently applied branding. An insightful strategy, elegantly implemented. Heck – even customers giving you custom. Lots of stuff.

What makes me sad is when I see custom ‘left on the table’, typically by organisations that believe they are doing ‘marketing’ when in fact they are simply tinkering with promotion. So much corporate value is forgone because what passes for a marketing plan is simply a list of FOMO promotional tactics, divorced from the organisation’s objectives and strategies.

We’re not all marketers, but...

Not everybody is a marketer, of course. Thank goodness for that, you might think. Yet a largely overlooked reality is that everybody is a consumer. Every organisation, company, institution and business is entirely staffed and run by consumers. At work, people identify as ‘sales’ or ‘accounts’ or ‘distribution’. Yet away from work, we are all astute and practised consumers, experts in receiving, decoding and responding to the media and messages that organisations publish, broadcast, mail, drop and generally put about. And this is a problem for marketers – and for the organisations that employ marketers.?

Stuff is marketing, right?

Consumers are perpetually and remorselessly exposed to stuff. Adverts, tweets, packaging, sponsorship, point of sale, social this, content that. Stuff. Hundreds and hundreds of individual interactions each day. Some of this stuff is good, some bad; some funny, some sad; much is aggressive, underhand, boring, lazy, populist and meaningless. Some is useful; occasionally, it can be brilliant, relevant and timely.

And these consumers, through no fault of their own, consider this to be marketing. They assume the Christmas advert, the community event, the TikTok video, the branded clothing, the white paper, the advertorial, the webinar, the trade show stand, the live stream, the creator collaboration, is marketing. And that’s a reasonable assumption. But it’s wrong.?

In fact, all of this stuff is the outcome of marketing. This deluge of consumer-facing stuff is the consequence of essential, immutable processes: asking and listening; critically thinking and deciding; planning, creating, checking and measuring. Collectively, the marketing process. The stuff that we - consumers - see and hear all around us, that we mindlessly think of as marketing, is in fact the outcome of marketing.

It's a process, not a thing

The Chartered Institute of Marketing defines marketing as:

Other definitions are available; all include the word ‘process’. None include the word ‘stuff’. If you want a TL:DR definition, then try this: ‘Marketing is how organisations figure out their shit’. Big picture: marketing is about markets, and markets are simply groups of like-minded people. Some may be customers, some consumers; some employees, some stakeholders. Figuring out what these different groups all need, and what you may or may not be able to do for them, is marketing. At that’s true whether you’re a PLC, a charity, a not-for-profit, consultant, sole trader or a government department.

Consider this: if an advert is ‘marketing’, how did the company figure out:

Needless to say, you need to have your answers to hand before you can Tok your Tik, book your 48 sheet, or lead with your thoughts. Otherwise, what are you actually doing?

It’s tactics, innit?

You might recognise this list. It’s essentially the Four Ps – product, price, place and promotion. The enduring tactical choices that we must first consider and then make in order to implement our strategies.

In this instance, the advert is an example of P-for-promotion. And, to be clear, whether you call stuff promotion, or advertising, communications or public relations, if you’re trying to get people’s attention because you want them to know something or do something, you’re promoting. And don’t forget that it was the marketing process that led you to decide you needed an advert. The advert is not the marketing.

Yet identifying and making tactical choices is only one part of the marketing process. An even more important value-adding sequence happens first – and this is arguably the heart of marketing. This is where we create value for the business, for the organisation, and ultimately for the consumer. It’s intelligent market analysis and insight. Careful segmentation and targeting. Insightful positioning, that makes your product or service relevant. It’s about creating robust strategies that will clearly and effectively meet the aims and objectives of the organisation. It's the identification and anticipation of customer requirements that the Chartered Institute of Marketing captures in its definition:

'The management process which identifies, anticipates, and supplies customer requirements efficiently and profitably.'

Omit the process, and organisations risk leaving value on the table.

Hiding in plain sight

Let's recap. Marketers understand that the stuff consumers believe to be marketing is in fact the result of marketing. It’s P-for-promotion. The problem we marketers face is that the marketing process from which this stuff derives is largely hidden from view. (It's absolutely hidden from the consumer's view; it's invariably hidden from view within the organisation too. Beyond the marketing department, it's practically invisible.) And since it’s hidden from view, organisations run the risk that it's never applied rigorously nor exploited fully by the business as a whole, despite the best endeavours of enlightened marketers. Too many organisations leave value on the table because they don’t know any better.

Consider if you will the iceberg – analogous to the marketing management process. 90% of an iceberg’s mass is hidden from view, beneath the waves. It necessarily exists – yet you only ever see the bit above water – the stuff, the promotion. The insight, the analysis, the strategies, and the significant majority of the decision-making and tactical development: all hidden beneath the waves.?

Realising the value

Here’s the clincher. Our promotions can only ever be relevant and effective if they reflect strategic analysis and development, guided by an organisation’s objectives and mission. You will get better results – more value – from your promotions if they are supported by the mass of ice – the strategic rigour – beneath the surface. Remove that mass and the iceberg literally rolls over – the promotional value is lost.

What’s your point?

To help marketing create more organisational value, we must help our colleagues understand how this all works. Understanding encourages company-wide participation which, in turn, helps us to enrich and improve the effectiveness of the marketing process. Here are two home-made graphics I've been using over the past seven years or so to illustrate that 'marketing is a process'. Firstly, what the consumer perceives as marketing:

Secondly, what’s going on beneath the waves – the marketing process:

In my experience, good things start happening within the organisation once 'consumers' understand that the promotional stuff can only ever be ‘of marketing’. And, like an insightful strategy, elegantly implemented, that makes me happy.

Thanks for reading.