Are you really Marketing?

I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.

Oh how I wish I could have the copyright on the above phrase. It really underscores that business owners say one thing but really mean another. Let’s take marketing as an example. What do you mean by doing your marketing?

Business owners all understand the need for marketing. However, we often substitute marketing when we mean advertising or selling. To add to the confusion, we hear about network marketing and multilevel marketing—which add to the euphemisms used to describe a new sales program. So what is marketing?

Perhaps the best way to define marketing is to look at what is called the marketing mix. That is the 4 areas of our business functions that we need to help us sell our goods and services. These are:

·PRODUCT:

Marketing calls us to define your service or our product and understand what makes it unique. Keep it simple and make key decisions about your packaging, warranties, styling, repairs, updates, support, quality, functionality, options, accessories and brand name. However, be clear about your product and be able to describe it like Denzel Washington describes in the movie “Philadelphia”—“explain it to me like I am six year old.”

PROMOTION:

Who are we selling to and where are customers going to see our message or product? How will they hear, see or experience our goods and services? Should we use public relations? Are "pushing" or "pulling" our products through a distribution channel to get it to the customer? Finally, have we put together an adequate promotions budget?

PLACEMENT:

How will the customer receive our products? Are we selling direct, using a sales force, using mail order, internet, telephone, agents, wholesale, and retailers? Will our marketing area be exclusive, inclusive, or even selective?

PRICE:

It would seem this is a straight forward item, but how do price our products and services? Do we understand our value proposition or what separates us from our competition? Will we offer whole sale pricing and/or volume discounts? Can we bundle our services with other service or product offerings in order to be really competitive? Can we provide seasonal discount? (Selling bathing suits in the middle of winter?) Should we use our pricing to gain market penetration or provide special introductory discounts to early adopters of our goods?

So as you can see, marketing in more than simply selling. If we answer the questions posed under each of the headings we will develop a marketing mix. And we can adjust that mix as necessary in order to make our sales!