The New Marketing

It seems that the new marketing is all about "social marketing"; all about electronic and or digital marketing; and all about reaching people individually.

We like this new marketing. It makes our professional lives more precise. We now have measurement. There's no BS about how well you did on line. People either opened, clicked through or bought. "The numbers", as my friend Max says, "is the numbers".

But what has happened to the definition of marketing? It used to be that marketing was "The process of satisfying consumers needs and desires". Or how about this one? "The art and science of developing a product, a price and a promotion and distributing it in order to meet the demands of the market place". I guess these were as good as it got...back then.

Today, the new marketers are defining marketing as a "service". That's right, "a service" that helps people decide; while "sales" helps people buy.

By moving away from the old think of "creating demand, meeting demand or even making people buy things they don't want", we now can view the marketing process as a service that provides information to help people decide.

Skeptics will say, "wait a minute isn't marketing about creating dollars and increasing profits?" Sure it is, but isn't that the job of everyone in the company and not just the marketing person or department?

Wouldn't it be cool if we all saw marketing as a service to help people decide?

How would that change your approach to your business?
What information would you provide that you are not currently providing?