What Marketing is NOT...

Most people tend to think that marketing is easy; to some extent, they’re right. Marketing isn’t overly complicated, and anyone can theoretically advertise something. Successful, purposeful marketing, on the other hand, can actually be quite a challenge.

Effective marketing in the modern economy requires finesse. Whereas billboards and tv spots once ruled the world of advertising, more subtle means are required to reach audiences in an oversaturated marketplace. You can no longer slap together some copy and images or create commercials and wash your hands. Actually driving revenue through marketing requires a mix of planning and quick thinking.

The first step to creating a great marketing strategy is to forget everything you think you know about marketing. Let’s dispel a few myths to get you started:

1. Marketing is not “set it and forget it.” A great marketing campaign requires monitoring, analysis, and optimization throughout. Letting a campaign run itself can be a recipe for disaster.
2. Marketing is not a single campaign. If you run one campaign, you’ll have no analytics to determine success or failure. Run multiple campaigns, ensure variety, and learn what you are and are not good at. Then run with it!
3. Marketing is not a single-channel method. Make sure that you’re using a variety of marketing channels to achieve success. Don’t rely solely on social media, for example - or even a single social media network. Diversify to ensure you reach everyone!
4. Marketing is not about picking one target audience. We cannot say it enough: personas, personas, personas. It’s a plural noun! Learn more about creating personas to guarantee your marketing efforts always hit the right marks.
5. Marketing is not an instant fix. Be patient. Great marketing plans require a bit of cash and elbow grease up front, and you may not see immediate results. But effective marketing strategies are all about the long game, not the short play.
6. Marketing is not branding. Brand awareness efforts are an important part of marketing, but the real success in the modern market lies in performance-based marketing (CPC and CPL) and in thought leadership efforts.
7. Marketing is not just about feeding sales. Yes, marketing is about increasing ROI. But a good marketer works on engaging with their target audience and creating a relationship and ongoing conversation with them. This is what sustains purchasing over a lifetime instead of a season.

With these myths busted, it’s time to move onto the planning stages of your marketing strategy. Come up with a corporate story for your organization, and build your marketing strategy from there. Creating a story and comprehensive gameplan will help you keep your goal within focus, and help you build a foundation for ongoing success.

Check out Advantage Business Media’s Corporate Playbooks to start generating ideas for your own story:

Corporate Playbook

Branding Playbook

Performance-Based Playbook

Thought Leadership Playbook

TL;DR: Marketing is about showing, not telling. A video of people having fun at an event is more effective than the event’s founder swearing that the event is fun.