I meet so many people each day and every single one has a different idea about what marketing is... Some think that its Public Relations and others think is promotional items, a billboard or TV advertising. The majority believe that their marketing is advertising or traditional media.
From Wikipedia: Marketing is an integrated communications-based process through which individuals and communities discover that existing and newly-identified needs and wants may be satisfied by the products and services of others.
Now that you have heard that...here is a story that I read somewhere and it in my opinion truly defines MARKETING...
If the circus is coming to town and you paint a sign saying "Circus Coming to the Fairground Saturday," that's advertising. If you put the sign on the back of an elephant and walk it into town, that's promotion. If the elephant walks through the mayor's flower bed, that's publicity. And if you get the mayor to laugh about it, that's public relations. If the town's citizens go the circus, you show them the many entertainment booths, explain how much fun they'll have spending money at the booths, answer their questions and ultimately, they spend a lot at the circus, that's Marketing!
I believe that true marketing involves the strategy of the business that I am serving. Strategy involves the product or service the client produces and the audience in which the client needs to reach. Once that is determined I work to connect the deliverable (public relations, advertising, online marketing and promotional products) that best reach that audience and deliver the clients message.
