There seems to be an epidemic of so called “marketers” running around offering up dubious definitions of marketing and questionable advice on what it means and how to make it work for your business.
In that case, I wanted to spend a few moments giving you some thoughts about why marketing is just about everything for your business and how you can use that idea to have a positive impact on your business.
- Marketing is just an exchange of ideas: so the thing about this is that you need to have an idea of what you want your prospects and customers to know and feel from working and being associated with you. If you don’t know what idea you are conveying, you are going to likely not convey what you want to. That’s a missed opportunity.
- Marketing isn’t a tactic, it is a strategy: Which means that it isn’t a sometimes thing, it is an all the time thing. That means that you can’t ever think that marketing isn’t and shouldn’t be a constant consideration. Because it is and has to be something you are always paying attention to.
- Marketing must be a long term play, but know that you can destroy all that hard work in a very short amount of time: While marketing is a lifelong responsibility, know that the ability to destroy your brand can be instantaneous. You can screw up royally, quickly. And, if you aren’t careful, you are going to never regain your footing.
- The basics and best practices of marketing are universal and new tools, technologies, and actions are tactical: You should always be experimenting with new tools like how everyone was investing and investigating social media and was a “social media marketer.” The thing is social media is a tool and using it is a tactic. Marketing is still marketing and revolves around your organization’s ability to spread its ideas.