How many billboards did you drive past going to work this morning? How many ads did you hear on the radio? Do you remember any of them? Probably only a small percentage. Not because they were bad ads, they were probably good ads – but you didn’t have an immediate need for that product or service, so they became “white noise”. The point is until you are ready for the message, you will not see or hear it.
In Part one of this entry – I said the purpose of this blog was not to get into the nuances of different marketing activities – but rather to plow the field. Oddly, perhaps because we are close to the process we engage in marketing activities without necessarily remembering WHY?
It is the job of Sales to increase sales. It is the job of Finance to watch the money. That’s all pretty straight forward BUT what is the job of marketing?
IT IS TO INCREASE PROFIT. When you view marketing from that perspective and not as a collection of different activities it takes on a whole new significance (particularly in a down economy).
Consider, it is easy to get sales if you are willing to lose money on everything that goes out the door. The job of sound marketing is to husband profit by putting the right products in front of the right people at the right time such that their perceived value will make customers more anxious to buy from you than you are to sell to them.
Isn’t that what you really want?
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Hi Paul
In a larger corporation, I would say that it’s the job of sr. mgmt. to increase profit; marketing gets its chunk of $ and works to increase product exposure in all kinds of (hopefully) creative ways to increase sales, no?
In a smaller company, roles overlap.
Your point is most valid, I think, in that in any company, marketing is the core (given that products exist :-). Neglect it at your peril.
Your point is well taken
Senior management bears responsibility for profitability but then that begs the question;
Why is the marketing budget always the first to be chopped in a down turn it seems?
I would humbly submit it is because all too often it is viewed as a collection of tasks rather than a cohesive program.
The knee jerk reaction is for example don’t go to tradeshows – instead of looking at your program and saying “This show stays, this one goes based on ROI”
The marketing mindset says that if any activity is not carring its weight – lose it and where I see a fire – throw gasoline on it.
All too often the good can get swept out with the bad.