What is Marketing?

Here’s another quick thing that caught my eye while working on some larger posts.

In an interview with David Meerman Scott, he said:

There are four main ways to generate attention:

• You can BUY attention (this is called advertising)
• You can BEG for attention (this is called Public Relations)
• You can BUG people one at a time to get attention (this is called sales)
• You can EARN attention online by creating great information that your buyers want to consume such as YouTube videos, blogs, Twitter feeds, photographs, charts, graphs, and ebooks—and it is all free

So, what is marketing? It isn’t listed in David’s list, even though each of the items looking like they’re marketing.

They are all marketing. Including the last point, social media is public relations.

Marketing is the research that helps you decide the products or services to produce. It’s the customer identification and segmenting. It’s even the delivery process, and sentiment that comes after the purchase.

I think marketing’s depth gets forgotten with all the new tactics and focus areas we now have. But without understanding audience, and research, and how it all comes together, your social media or public relations won’t be as effective.

Next time someone asks, what is marketing? It’s all of the above.

For those curious about the larger posts I’m working on, they are:

• The difference between WordPress stats and Google Analytics
• Book Review: Promote Yourself: The New Rules for Career Success – I’m struggling with this one
• How to find the search terms in Google Webmaster Tools
• Book Review: The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work – I’m excited for this one, but making myself finish at least one of the others first.
• Book Review: Pioneers of Digital: Success Stories from Leaders in Advertising, Marketing, Search and Social Media – Great book and very useful, but not a smooth read.