Why Marketing Matters 2006 Qtr 3
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Why Marketing Matters |
Companies attempting to “position” themselves first need to take a position. Optimally, it should relate to something their market actually cares about.
Cluetrain Manifesto
Marketing may be the most misunderstood management activity in business.
Manufacturing makes things. Designers design things. Engineers make sure the things designers design can actually be built to function reliably.
Purchasing buys things. Sales sells things. HR takes care of people things.
But what, exactly, does marketing do? Ask five people you know. Chances are you will get five different answers. But the most common will probably sound something like “marketing is the department that does the advertising, makes brochures and handles trade shows.” Close, but no cigar.
The problem is that because many people don’t really understand marketing, they have a difficult time describing it, except by identifying some of the tactics, such as creating brochures or advertising. But marketing as a management discipline has morphed over the past few years to encompass areas beyond the traditional “four P’s” of product, price, place (distribution) and promotion.
It is important to re-frame the discussion of what exactly marketing is. A teacher in college drilled one concept into our heads: if you can’t explain something, you probably don’t understand it. So, herewith, is our definition of marketing. It probably won’t be what you’re expecting. It will most likely make you a bit nervous:
“Marketing is the management process of delivering customer satisfaction.”
By its very nature, marketing lives and works both outside of the company, in the realm of the customer, and internally where its job is to represent the voice of the customer inside the organization. To understand the unmet needs and motivations of customers so that all internal operations can be focused on meeting those needs and expectations.
Marketing’s role, then, is delivering customer satisfaction. And that is often best accomplished by using the power of a brand as the delivery vehicle of choice. The impactful presentation of a brand’s promise to deliver, wrapped in a powerful experience, is the goal of many marketing tactics.
However, the results of marketing activities are sometimes difficult to quantify (as the sidebar quotation by Harvard Business Review editor Thomas Stewart so eloquently summarizes). Internal functions are easier to measure and control because for the most part they are internal, and therefore more predictable and controllable. Plus, successful control often means cost containment.
Marketing (and marketers) typically live outside the box. They understand that demand creation is inextricably linked to customer satisfaction. And customers needn’t be just the end consumers of products and services, but all of the customers and influencers in increasingly complex distribution channels.
Marketing can often find itself on the opposite side of an issue when it comes to costs and innovations. For example, adding SKUs that meet customer needs can also be viewed as increasing manufacturing complexity and inventory costs. Offering enhanced helpline assistance for customers can be viewed as adding costs to perceived non-revenue producing activities.
Growth is a proactive, customer-facing proposition. As Peter Drucker summarized so eloquently, “Innovation and marketing are the two drivers of a business. All the rest is cost.” Marketing’s role is to understand the customer, first and foremost; to understand the issues, motivations, pain points and aspirations.
Only from this deep understanding of the customer can an organization innovate in its products and processes to provide unique experiences that build customer satisfaction. Only problem is: customer expectations keep changing. What was once considered superior quality and service, for example, is now the entry level expectation. Raise the bar.
The intent of the article is not to put marketing on a pedestal, or to make it more important than any other business process. It is simply to offer a different perspective on the role that marketing plays in growing businesses.
The tactical activities of marketing are important. And often they’re fun as well (planning trade shows, creating advertising, etc.). But they will not count for very much if they are not clearly focused on the task of understanding the customer and creating products and programs that increase customer satisfaction.
Perhaps the way to measure marketing effectiveness has less to do with “counting leads” from ads, direct mail and so forth; and instead focuses on the correlation between customer satisfaction and profitability. Just a thought.
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