Marketing is hard

Why Marketing is Hard - Products don't exist and I will tell you why

#marketing #products #business #customerRelationship #customerValue #marketingExperience

Let us get one thing straight. I hate writing blogs. But what I hate more is REPEATING myself!!

Teaching a class full of young, bored to death students who always assume (presume) what marketing is drives me to the edge. Why? Because they make they think that Marketing is (a) Selling (b) advertising (c) creating products and sometimes the word CUSTOMER is thrown in.

Well I am going to explain why students can be delusional about the concept of marketing. I blame the educator and their exposure. 

Here are some definitions of marketing

Marketing is the social process by which individuals and organizations obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging value with others.
Kotler and Armstrong (2010).

Marketing is the management process for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably.
The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM). Accessed 2012.

A revision of marketing concepts by Professor Baber Mirza


As you can see from the above, the words PRODUCT, SALES, and ADVERTISING are nowhere to be found. The definitions are coming from two of the most valuable sources of marketing knowledge in the history of civilization. 

Why then do we make that deadly assumption. Are just stupid that way? (please say yes). 

First let us clarify what marketers really do. They create value by researching needs, wants, demands, and desires. They research what solution consumers are searching for to satisfy their needs. Hence, they partake on a NEED GAP ANALYSIS journey to figure it out.

I will write about Needs, Wants, Demands, and Desires soon.

Once the solution has been found, marketers build a strategy to address that need (problem) of the consumer. Remember, just like a doctor looks for symptoms for a disease, marketers look for the underlying need to be satisfied. And then they solve it by the 4 Ps (or 4 Cs) of marketing.

Once the solution has been provided i.e., a sale of product to the prospective customer, the journey doesn't end. Marketers then monitor the usage of the product and await proper feedback that can allow them to enhance the experience of the consumer.

Wait-Just-A-Darned-Minute. (Pulls out gun). Experience of the consumer... did I mean consuming the product, or the whole process of searching, obtaining, consuming, and disposing it? I meant the latter. 

Consumer's don't consumer products. They consumer experiences. 

I will speak about this briefly here and in length in my Ted Talk. (next blog, duh)

If you want to consume a cup of coffee, its not just the coffee that marketers observe you drinking, but the way you searched for it, evaluated it against competitors, evaluated the taste, price, and availability. They research how many times you drank it. And also how you would choose it again, or even reject it. 

You see, a product doesn't exist. It is the experience of searching, acquiring it, and evaluating it. Product is just part of the Value the marketers created. Part of the solution. or rather part of the doctor's prescription. 

And this my friends, is how marketers also capture value from you. They get feedback, enhance their experience, and try to establish a profitable relationship with you.

That my friend, my pal, my dear, is how marketing is defined. 

So if you ever think it is only about sales, advertising, or product, you are not wrong, you are just not correct. 

But what about sales and advertising you say.

Marketers need to communicate with you. Think of PR and Word of Mouth. Body Shop has no advertisements and yet it became such a powerful brand. 

Apple releases a product and people line up outside their stores. That is not a sale. It is a purchasing of goods. 

Marketers try to eliminate the sales effort and also the advertising effort. But this story is for another day. 

Thank you and If you like this blog post, please share with your friends so they are not involved in the crime of saying Marketing is about PRODUCT, SALES, and ADVERTING.

Professor Baber Mirza is a BBIT, MBA, and a master of the dark arts.


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