Marketing Focus: What is marketing, anyway?

Monday 23 July 2018

In Connect magazine each month, marketing expert Chris Journeaux discusses the current issues facing the industry. This month, he spills the beans on what exactly is marketing, and why it should not be disregarded in favour of product knowledge.

"Have you got a rather inflated view of your role? Maybe you see your job as the fourth emergency service, the one that gets cruelly overlooked by a society that just fails to appreciate your great value?

"I have no such illusions and, whilst I am clear about the significant value that the marketing function brings to a business, I would not line up with a nurse or police office when essential services are called for.

"But there is an issue with marketing that needs airing. Talking to one of my CIM students recently, I realised that many professional services still believe that product knowledge is more important to a marketing role than marketing skills and training. Having spent five years with a lifestyle brand, working her way through the CIM Diploma, and with considerable ability, she had set her sights on moving into finance. She applied to two firms, both looking for accomplished and experienced marketing professionals for a mid-level role. Both firms turned her down because she had no experience of working in finance. They felt that product knowledge is more important than marketing. 

"There are some odd elements to this view. First, whilst there are many very talented people working in finance, it is not a pre-requisite to work in the sector. That is going by many of the people I have met. Finance, at least as marketers need to know it, is just not that complex. The second is that marketing principles are universal; it is the context that is specific. That specific product knowledge can be learnt, and learnt fast.

"To believe in the primacy of product knowledge is not only to diminish to value of marketing, it is to potentially hire less than stellar marketing professionals. Clearly, the firms do not value the role.

"This is not limited to finance, of course. A recent recruitment notice in the Jersey Evening Post for a Jersey law firm listed the many marketing skills and knowledge they required….oh, and by the way, a comprehensive acquaintance with design software is also required. That’s pretty impressive: they managed to belittle two professions in one.

"In effect saying they want someone to work with marketing strategy and tactical application, who can also design some stuff whilst they’re there. You have to love a law firm that looks to save money by cutting back on the value of the support roles.

"Is this just me being precious, or is there business value in understanding what it is, exactly, that the marketing function does? Whilst I always steer my degree students away from the wide array of spurious online sources, let’s review an easily identified definition of marketing; this one from marketingteacher.com.

"Quoting Kotler and Armstrong, two giants in the world of marketing academia, they say the following: “Marketing is the social process by which individuals and organizations obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging value with others.” Perhaps to the outsider this may, at first glance, seem rather bland and unspecific. However, consider this another way: the scope and value of marketing reaches into every aspect of your business, whatever that business is. It is the strategic driver for securing the bottom line whilst delighting your customer base sufficiently that they will return, time after time to buy from you, not the competition.

"This simple fact affects how we structure the firm itself. Muse on these oddities: a marketing function that sits separately to the digital marketing team. Try integrating your messaging with these two pulling in different directions. Or the more subtle: business development not coming under the remit of marketing. BD is a specialist element of marketing, not a different function. My favourite is the wall built between marketing and PR. If marketing is developing the strategy why did someone think it was wise to hive off some of the delivery to a different team of people?

"The problem lies in the hierarchy of the business. It requires barely two sets of fingers to count the firms which have the marketing function sitting at director level. This is not a plea for more money and kudos, this is an attempt to state what should be obvious: if your business is being run with a strategy at its heart, why would you not have the strategic engine feeding directly into the decision-making unit?

"Fundamentally though, to understand how marketing can best serve your business you need to fully understand what it is that it does; so let me return to the marketing godfather himself, Dr. Philip Kotler. He better defines marketing as, “…the science and art of exploring, creating, and delivering value to satisfy the needs of a target market at a profit’. (Damn we’re important). If that doesn’t define how successful your firm can be, then maybe running a business is just not for you."