A Definition of Marketing in Nine Words
In business schools, we were force fed many comprehensive, yet meaningless definitions of marketing –and were then forced to recite, write, and regurgitate it. Two days ago, Chris Kenton asked the community roundtable for their definition of marketing, I coughed up mine:
[Marketing is the act of connecting customers to products]
Usually, I’m very thorough in my blog posts, but this time, I’ll keep it simple. Submit your definitions below, or critique mine.
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I like the one I saw recently - I think it was from Duct Tape Marketing -
The art of getting known, liked and trusted.
Works for me!
Nice…
How about some new ones?
Here’s the 2.0 one:
Marketing is the communication between producers, pro-sumers, and consumers.
Here’s the 3.0 one:
Marketing is the community between producers, pro-sumers, and consumers.
I guess you don’t sleep either Jeremiah?
Good submissions, keep em coming
I’ll sleep when I die David.
…marketing is a compensative process for not being remarkable
Thomas
You made me laugh. Good one.
But even remarkable companies like Apple have to market themselves.
I like the simplicity, but for full accuracy you need to add two more words at the end “… or services.”
Then it works in the real world and at an academic level.
“Marketing is the act of connecting customers to products or services.”
Jeremiah,
I’d tweak it slightly: “The art and science of connecting companies with people”
We’ve been having a good debate online re: the language we use to define “people” in commerce: targets, consumers, audiences, etc. I’m working to humanize the language we use in our branding practice, and using “people” makes me feel differently about the what we do, and the impact it has. It makes our work more personal, more meaningful, and in the process, more likely to establish the connection we’re seeking to create.
Best,
Rick
4.0 one:
Marketing is the network weaving between producers, pro-sumers, and consumers.
In the Web 2.0 world I see the marketing more as an ART:
Marketing is the ART of connecting customers to products
Marketing was in charge of Awareness and Knowledge, now the Knowledge is being gathered through the internet. Know how is becoming the ART.
marketing is what we used to do to promote ourselves before the marketplace figured out what we were doing and decided they could do a better job
Marketing is the shared creation of awesomeness.
It’s smart to re-write the ‘traditional’ definition of marketing and I like the direction you are headed. I wonder about the choice of the word ‘customer’, which assumes a commercial relationship already exists. I have to think about what other word I’d suggest because ‘consumer’ doesn’t work in the B2B world (even though arguably they ‘consume’ business solutions, it’s just not the vernacular).
Also, is there a goal to the ‘act’ of connecting or is it just connecting for connecting’s sake? If there should be a ‘goal’, does marketing need to have a commercial bias (e.g. to ‘buy’ something, to ‘transact’ in some way)? Should marketing be done with a goal of creating advocates?
With your proposed definition, how is marketing differentiated from the related disciplines of sales and advertising (which arguably could be sub-sets of marketing)?
This could be a very interesting thread.
Jeremiah-
Great post. It gets even murkier when you specify what type of marketer you are. There’s a great deal of hand-wringing going on in the affiliate marketing world this week after Jason Calacanis’ “wake up, y’all” keynote Monday at the Affiliate Summit.
Even if you’re not in affiliate marketing (or don’t have a taste for it), there are some interesting meta-memes popping up:
http://www.revenews.com/samharrelson/and-ill-no-longer-be-a-capulet/
Fun stuff to ponder and practice.
Sam
I currently use ‘Marketing is the act of communicating and building community with current and potential customers in order to facilitate value exchange’.
I like the simplicity of yours and that it’s broad enough to be timeless (no Marketing 3.0 vs 1.0 dichotomy). It does need at least a mental hyperlink to a customer definition (do we include potential customers? Is a free visitor to a web site a customer?) and an end goal (I assume we’re not just doing this for fun).
B-school definitions are comprehensive and incomprehensible. I once interviewed a half-dozen new graduates of a top b-school for a Marketing role. Most looked like a deer in the headlights when asked to define the discipline.
Marketing, branding, advertising, are all interrelated activities whose goal should be the creation of memorable experiences for people (in both B2B and B2C) that encourage trial and repeat purchases of products an services.
Re: Experiences they come in a multiplicity of forms:
The Guggenheim Museum’s architecture: beholding it makes one *feel* something, that lures on inside.
The service at The Mercer hotel keeps me returning to it.
The passion Jeremiah displays for sharing his knowledge and facilitating dialogue, encourages me to recommend Forrester.
It goes on and on in many guises . . , all experiences that create associations with brands in ways that encourage specific commerce related responses.
I like your definition, Jeremiah, and the one Jon Moss mentions is priceless in its simplicity (note use of word “art”). Love that.
Here’s one I use, based on a Peter Drucker quote. Another angle, but nets it out pretty damn well:
Marketing is one of only two basic functions of business. The other is innovation. Both produce results; all the rest are costs.
regards,
Graeme
Another one I use often, more to help people realize what marketing isn’t:
Marketing is outside-in thinking.
Simply putting yourself in their shoes. Hey, not rocket science…:-)
Okay, one more (off-topic) comment and I’ll stop. Loved your reference to the Warren Zevon classic” “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead.” Too bad the man did before his time, thanks to all that smoking. My personal fav” “Send Lawyers, Guns, and Money.”
Graeme, for what it’s worth, Zevon died of mesothelioma - a type of lung cancer not related at all to smoking. More related to, in his words, “a tactical error in not seeing a doctor for twenty years.”
No, I don’t work for Philip Morris, I just think the irony is compelling. So enjoy every sandwich!
Jeremiah,
I’ll critique yours without offering an obvious upgrade, if I may.
The gap I see in yours is that “connecting customers to products” implies (in my mental model, at least) a limited scope of taking Users A, B, C, and D, and Products 1, 2 and 3, and saying that:
- A should have 1 and 2
- B should have 3
- C isn’t a match.
- D isn’t a match either
Surely, marketing is also about listening to A, B, and C and using their feedback to produce:
- product 4 (which combines the benefits of 1 and 2 and is an even better match for A)
- product 5 (which suits C very well)
- a study that shows while product 6Beta might suit D, it would never be profitable, and D is better served by the competition
Marketing is connecting people to people.
Dan
How will buying happen if you connect people to people?
It’s not just about products, it’s also about services. It’s about connecting people to needed and desired products and services. So maybe, “Marketing is connecting people with beneficial products or services”
I even kept it at 9 and added an adjective!
Perfect.
[…] via […]
Transactions occur from person to person, at least in high-tech. What about services?
[Marketing is the act of connecting customers to products]
This is a great conversation and I’ll probably continue it on my blog.
Thanks for doing this!
“Give what the customers want with that extra bonus”
That’s what Marketing used to be in the sixties. I guess it still is.
I’ll be brief. Well said.
I agree with some above comments. The “connecting consumers with products” is a bit limiting. Often marketers are communicating an idea or experience - not the related products.
I propose simply:
“Marketing is the art of building relationships with consumers”
There are many ways we can do it. At the end of the day we want our offerings to relate with our customers.
Great blog post. It really makes you think.
I agree with your 9 word definition, but I’m still trying to get mine to be 9 words or less!
How about some of these:
- enabling a two-way relationship between a brand and a person
- growing awareness and allegiance
- scratching the itch
- satisfying needs through communication
- matchmaking
- reinforcement of ideals
In all of these I am taking the emphasis off the transaction and onto the driver that results in engagement. Marketing is not always about products or services… just thought I’d point that out. Yes, it is about a market. But what sort of market? A market for an idea, a message, a movement, some entertainment, a war, etc?
Thanks for driving this discussion, Jeremiah.
The problem with all of the definitions so far–unless I missed it–is the classic problem that explains why the average CMO has a life-expectancy of 18-months on the job. Profit. After years of being beaten over the head with ROI, marketers still neglect the concept of connecting with customers to drive profit. Marketing is, after all, always driving business. If you’re connecting with customers but losing your shirt in the process, you’re evangelizing, not marketing.
My simplest definition of marketing? Maximizing an exchange of value between a company and its customers. Unfortunately, that implies a lot that isn’t explicitly stated. But the two general categories of marketing function, to me, are about maximizing value and minimizing risk. Minimizing risk is all about strategy–selecting the right markets, developing the right products, understanding what customers want. This is the footwork you have to do to make sure you have a basis for business. Maximizing value is all about operations–developing the right team, building the right channels, executing effectively. The latter is the domain that marketers have become most comfortable with–marcom–and they’ve relinquished their seat at the strategy table. If you think that’s overstated, do a search on the number of corporate board members who come from marketing. It’s a very, very, small club. By far the majority of people directing the strategy of business in the US come from Finance, Sales and Operations. Which is too bad, because marketers do have a unique set of skills and insights to offer.
But this is a big, big topic. If you’re interested in digging a little deeper into the truly strategic side of marketing thought, pick up Competing for Customers and Capital by Victor Cook. I did an extensive book discussion which you can bore yourself with here: http://scribb.typepad.com/marketonomy/2006/10/competing_for_c_1.html.
Two attempts in 5 words:
“Marketing is satisfying customers’ needs”
“Marketing is making customers happy”
But these are blurring the lines between “marketing” and what the rest of the company does. Which is exactly my point.
Given than marketing has always been about human beings -i.e. their needs and wants- and since human psychology remains the same then marketing is, well, what has always been; satisfying consumer needs and wants at a profit.
Ok, we may be seeing all sort of “New Marketing” developments and techniques, and other buzzword-heavy, essence-light “revolutionary”, “this-changes-everything” ideas but the fact remains that marketing is about satisfying consumer needs and wants at a profit. So simple.
Although a little warm and fuzzy, I think I’ve got a decent four-word answer:
“Marketing is fostering conversations.”
Conversation presumes that those who are engaged in it are just that - engaged. They derive some benefit from it. That benefit may be monetary, emotional, academic, etc. but it exists.
Here’s a very simple definition:
Marketing is the art of making the consumer want what you’ve got to offer
I kinda like Sergio Zyman’s definition: “Marketing success is selling more stuff to more people more often for more money more efficiently.”
I think this definition contrasts nicely with Doc Searls’ belief that “Sales is real; Marketing is bullshit.” Heh.
I would actually challenge all of these posts by defining marketing as the process of creating a demand. “connecting” doesn’t really mean anything in my opinion.
Marketing used to be about convincing people that your product or service is best suited to solve their needs.
Now marketing is about creating a demand, thanks to social media marketing, this is not longer that big of a challenge.
Everyone markets someone, whether it’s apple, or the guy down the street trying to sell you fake sun glasses.
“Marketing has been replaced by customering”
“Customering is creating, selling and delivering products to customers.”
Dealing with customers as groups in markets is older than 1.0.
The whole marketing/comms space has metamorphosed so dramatically over the last 20 years. And marketing isn’t even just about products any more. Now people also have to market themselves - to employers employees and even prospective partners. So I figure we have to besimpler still…
‘Marketing is the art of inspiring desire that leads to action’
Good enough. It’s wide enough to be interpreted to advertising or a holistic approach. The only other function of a business is innovation. Everything other than that is a support function.
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In my opinion (the future of) marketing is/will be/need to be what I call human to human marketing http://www.slideshare.net/fackeldeyfinds/the-future-of-marketing-is-human-1007
marketing is connecting customers to your company. (Products are the means to do so.)
Just curious…
Does it worry anyone that we have 44 posts proposing definitions for a core business function that’s existed for more than 100 years as an organized discipline?
[…] [Marketing is the act of connecting customers to products] […]
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The best definition I’ve heard came from (not surprisingly) Seth Godin– something like “Marketing is ‘influencing the actions of others.’” It’s much bigger than products and services– it can go as far as impacting the response (or lack thereof) to a human rights issue or the decisions/actions of a government.
Marketing is the act of connecting PROSPECTS to products.
Marketing is more about getting “prospects” (people who have never heard about your product) to learn, understand and turn into loyal customers. Customers are already “converts.” Growing market share and becoming the #1 brand is all about conversion of prospects.
Brad
Thanks, but I was a marketing manager at Hitachi, we marketed to existing customers all the time!
The reason I chose customers, not prospects, because that was the ultimate goal.
Marketing is the integration of desire & need, perpetuated over time.
A Definition of Marketing…
Marketing is the shared process to manage an offers PoC.
(Points of Communication).
As part of the discussion at Forrester I thought about the term Markting for some days and would love to add……
“Marketing is creating a need out of a want”
best example: apple ipods
There’s been a lot of talk here about “connecting customers to products” but thats Community Marketing. Marketing, as its been for 100s of years, its just making things more desirable. I like and want to listen to music, but I NEED an ipod to do it (not any mp3 player, but an IPOD).
How are we (marketers) really connecting customers to products? In a way, I guess we create some kind of connection, whether it be emotional or physical, but its the act of “wanting” something that makes marketing work. Feeling connected and wanting something are two different monsters…connected drives interest, but wanting something drives $$$. I don’t think everyone is emotionally attached to the stuff they buy…nor do I think people buy something because they feel connected…at least not yet. Instead, the vast majority of us buy something because its a must-have in this society…everyone has ipods with the white earphones…so I need one…but do I feel a connection? Nope.
disclosure: i dont work for apple, but they are just one of the select few who have mastered marketing.
bonjour everyone
if i try to define what marketing is to me, i’d say that it is an attempt from the brands to control (or at least influence) the way brands and consumers interact.
neither clear nor universal, i know.
i still like the first one, “Marketing is the act of connecting customers to products” (or services, as Gordon wrote).
[…] Perfekt. [via] […]
Here’s mine.
Marketing is an ongoing two-way conversation between consumers and their target audience.
Marketing is responsible for all things that cause a desired audience to believe that you are worth trying, choosing, coming back for and telling others (advocacy) about. Good marketers are able to simplify the essence of the value proposition that promotes all of these things. Marketing should have more of a role in defining the actual product or service prior to the above but that is another problem - usually marketers do corporate communications, not product/service/experience design. The web 2.0 definitions could be: marketing is understanding what customers see in you and finding low cost/no cost ways of letting others know in a stealth word-of-mouth way that you a cool firm that is anti-marketing all the while making sure to stay out of the loop in fear that customers will feel it is another technique of being tricked. Ultimately, marketing is crafting the tune that folks whistle when they leave the theatre.
It’s interesting how we each interpret this based on our industry or the type of marketing we do.
Building on Jeremiah’s definition, here’s mine:
“Marketing is the art of compelling customers to engage with organizations, products and services.”
I used the term “engage” because I think of marketing more in the sense of having customers/prospects take some sort of action, whether it be buying a product, signing up for a service, asking for more information, or what have you. While the connecting is important it is just the first step in having them do something.
As a counter-marketerian
(a trained non-believer), marketing is an overall flawed concept to begin with. Start with the premise upon which it was built and why.
Businesses exist for and because of relationships and transactions. Eliminate either one and the business fails to exist (transactions in the business model of a Foundation, could be to give money away). What purpose does marketing serve? — to facilitate both of those.
Marketing doesn’t need a description. Marketing needs a focus: “Experiences are the Transactions of Relationships”
Michael Brito
You wrote: “Marketing is an ongoing two-way conversation between consumers and their target audience.”
There’s lots of marketing activities that don’t involve a conversation, such as market research, advertising, buying lists and sending out email blasts and direct mail.
I’m not so sure ‘conversations’ (while important) are the only activity in marketing.
“between consumers and their target audience”?
do consumers have a target audience?
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