Marketing Is inclusive

What helps people, helps business. ~ Leo Burnett

My friend Chris passed along the article, Top 5 Marketing Myths to Avoid, to me last week. The first read caused me to shake my head in disbelief. The second made me sad.

Here is why

The article’s main point seemed to be that marketing is a only something you do. It isn’t strategic and should only support sales. I disagree. They should work together, not for one another.

Inclusive not exclusive

This is a version of an old mindset that makes marketing, and sales for that matter, isolated from other departments like operations, product development, etc. I believe marketing is both strategic and tactical. It should help cast a companies vision and be involved in every area because we are all marketers. And if you are in a company that sells products or services, you are in sales too. Oh, and if your business has customers, you are in customer service.

Yes, each division has specific tasks it performs but marketing touches everything because it is about telling relevant stories and interacting with an audience that wants what you have to offer. Tell me a part of an organization that isn’t involved in contributing to its story.

Marketing is strategic and tactical

Marketing is strategic because it answers the “who”, “what”, “why”, and “where” questions. This data is valuable for unifying all parts of company to know who they are, who their customer is, and why they are in business.

Marketing is also tactical because using the data helps determine the  “how.”

Can’t we all get along?

Many companies are broken today because there is too much internal conflict. There should be a collective responsibility for everyone to do what needs to be done to create win-win relationships between the customer and the company.

If everyone worked towards that goal, wouldn’t the rest work itself out?

photo credit:  paul bica