Marketing: definition, what is it? Is it useful or not?

Marketing: definition, what is it? Is it useful or not?

you  are here because you are wondering what marketing is? What is the definition of marketing? Are you looking for a simple definition of the word marketing?

Definition of marketing

Of all the definitions of marketing, I prefer its etymological approach: "marketer" which means to put on the market. For me, this corresponds to all the analyses and actions necessary to put a product or service on the market and sell it. Marketing is therefore the very essence of business and entrepreneurship. So it's not just communication.

Beyond the 4Ps of marketing, the different marketing disciplines....

For a long time marketing has been reduced to 4Ps, for Product, Price, Promotion and Place (for location / distribution channels, I prefer to describe it by its different disciplines that accompany the marketing of a product or service, from the most strategic to the most operational.

strategic marketing

Strategic analysis is an essential component of marketing. It consists in assessing the relevance of addressing a new market or launching a new product. Often, when you create your company, you do strategic marketing without knowing it, you start from a conviction, a strong knowledge of your sector and you content yourself with a business plan to start, without necessarily evaluating the strategic relevance of your project.

Once your company becomes more important or because you need to pivot because your first intuition was not the right one, it becomes necessary to professionalize your strategic approach and not just follow your intuitions: you have to study your new markets and understand their expectations and create a real marketing plan.

Product marketing

Product marketing is an extension of strategic marketing, it consists in developing the characteristics of your product or service - functionalities, distribution channels, design, etc. - in order to improve your product or service. - to meet his customers.

The pricing

This dimension of the business is very often forgotten even though it has a direct impact on profitability and cannot be improvised. It makes it possible to determine the right price to maximize profitability. It is a question of not selling too expensive at the risk of losing customers, nor of not selling expensive enough at the risk of degrading margins. It is necessary to find the right balance, model and test to achieve this.

Promotion/communication

Marketing is essentially known on this dimension and often suffers from a preconceived notion of communication. Which of you has never heard that communicators are manipulators, that they sell wind? A few years ago, I rebelled against an issue of Cash Investigation that only dealt with the subject of marketing from a scam perspective (see my letter to Elise Lucet).

However, this dimension of the discipline is just as important as the others, it is more subjective than the more rational ones, but can also be evaluated, measured to generate a real return on investment.

Operational marketing

Beyond communication, there is operational marketing, the operational implementation of your marketing strategy, it is trade marketing which deals with the relationship between a brand and its distributor, relationship marketing, which addresses all contact points by mail, email, SMS, promotional operations, packaging, street marketing, events, etc.

Impact of digital on marketing

Marketing has become much richer and more diversified with the arrival of digital and the possibility for each brand to become its own media, to communicate on multiple channels much less expensive than before. TV, radio, the press were and still are much more expensive than a website, a blog or a presence on social networks.

If you are starting up or if you are already an established brand, it is therefore possible for you today to do marketing for much less than before, to multiply your levers of action to make operations much more profitable and less dependent on traditional media.

Marketing from the United States

Americans, on the other hand, have understood the importance of marketing!

They are much less cautious than we are on the subject, they have a real culture of entrepreneurship. Marketers are gurus like Seth Godin or Blair Enns whom I had the chance to interview. He explained our differences, including our cultural differences.

Americans often do better than us. Not because they have better engineers, ours are often much better, but because they have better marketers, products that meet customer expectations, simpler messages and more efficient devices. We clearly need to learn from them on the subject... Hence all the anglicisms used that do not help evangelization on marketing.

Why it is dangerous not to do marketing

To conclude this pro-marketing plea I would like to warn you about the dangers of not doing so.

But first of all, two last excerpts from the debate:

A demonstration by the absurdity of Cyril Bladier

"It is clear that marketing is useless and is only a source of expense. That is why the best products, the most efficient and at the best prices are always sold.

It is clear that customers are waiting for us and that they will know us just because we exist. As it is clear that as soon as I am on LinkedIn or Facebook, the social networking effect will immediately boost my profile or my company and that requests will naturally flow in. It's simple: I'm going to make the buzz.

It is also obvious that as soon as I create a website, everyone will find it without me doing anything. Moreover, "when I look for my site, I find it", it is proof that it works on its own and that marketing is useless. I am the first on the front page of my brand that no one knows about. “

And a conversation reported by Michael AGUILAR

One day, a client of Jacques Séguéla told him:

- Advertising is expensive!

Séguéla answered him:

- Yes, advertising is very expensive... to the one who doesn't do it!!!!!

Yes, not doing marketing can be expensive

So, if you continue to take marketing lightly, put profiles that are not senior enough, do not invest the right budgets, or if you are in a company that is in this situation, you are taking real risks today that can seriously affect the future of your company. Thus, without good marketing you risk

• To invest in new projects that are doomed to failure,
• To make new products that are not expected by consumers,
• To screw up on prices by being either not expensive enough or too expensive,
• To lose many projects because you are not consulted, not identified, or not recognized enough to justify your price levels

If you don't do marketing, you leave the place and the ground clear for your competitors to be:

• Better identified,
• Better loved,
• So no longer purchased

You give them room to manoeuvre so that they can develop new products and services and take more market share from you. It is important to have good engineers to make good products and good sales people to close your sales. But it is also essential to have good marketers to build real brand assets. Why do you think companies like Apple, Google, Redbull, etc. are also valued, not only because they make good products, but also because they have great marketing strategies.