Some people think marketing is advertising or branding or some other
vague concept. While all these are associated with marketing, they are
not one and the same.
Here’s the simplest, most jargon-free, definition of marketing you’re ever
likely to come across: If the circus is coming to town and you paint a sign saying “Circus
Coming to the Showground Saturday,” that’s advertising.
If you put the sign on the back of an elephant and walk it into town, that’s
promotion. If the elephant walks through the mayor’s flower bed and the local
newspaper writes a story about it, that’s publicity. And if you get the mayor to laugh about it, that’s public relations.
If the town’s citizens go to the circus, you show them the many
entertainment booths, explain how much fun they’ll have spending
money at the booths, answer their questions and ultimately, they spend a
lot at the circus, that’s sales.
And if you planned the whole thing, that’s marketing.
Yup it’s as simple as that—marketing is the strategy you use for getting
your ideal target market to know you, like and trust you enough to
become a customer. All the stuff you usually associate with marketing
are tactics. We’ll talk more about strategy vs. tactics in a moment.
However, before we do that you need to understand a fundamental shift
has occurred in the last decade and things will never be the same.