Have you ever been in a conversation with other marketers and you get the sense that even though you are talking about marketing, sometimes you aren’t on the same page about how marketing should work, be implemented or the direction it’s headed?
I’ve been mulling this over after reading the reviews of my blog on Scribnia (a rating and discovery engine for bloggers and columnists). I received great ratings (many thanks!) but the common theme of the reviews was that some people didn’t agree with my opinions/observations on marketing, PR and social media. My first gut reaction was “How can that be? I blog about basic, text book marketing and PR.”
I started thinking about the reasons why marketers can be talking about the same topic and yet have totally different responses or reactions to the conversation at hand and I’ve come to this conclusion: all marketers are not created equal. What do I mean by that? Glad you asked.
The University/College Experience
I don’t know about you, but as marketing major, I had a lot of different professors through the years, most with their own agendas, and if it was a “publish or perish” school we usually used their book(s), articles, or worked towards research that met their agendas.* And my professors’ never seemed to approach marketing the same way. I am sure that I am not the only marketer that had that experience. Not to mention that as marketing students we each had a different ability to take in and process what we were learning.
The Work Experience
Remember back to your first or second marketing job. Perhaps you tried to remember everything you learned from your university/college days, but that research project on marketing Tastykake in Slovakia just didn’t seem quite relevant to the ‘real world’ (*that was one of my projects for my professor’s client…see what I mean by agenda?!). Or maybe you didn’t major in marketing or go to university/college at all and your first marketing job was your first exposure to marketing. But none of that mattered anyway because there was a new set of people to get acquainted with and to learn from –and they had their own set of agendas for you to learn.
The Experienced Marketer Experience
After about 5-10 years of getting your hands dirty with the tactical and strategic sides of marketing you have it all down. Perhaps you’ve worked with small unknown clients/companies and/or large well-known clients/companies. You know what marketing is, you know what works or doesn’t. You have developed a marketing gut. Maybe you’re an expert in one area or maybe you’re a Jack or Jane of all marketing trades–but one thing is for sure, you know marketing and now you have your own agenda.
Now multiply these three experiences by all the marketers out there. It’s amazing there’s any agreement at all on marketing best practices. And that’s only three experiences…I am sure there are many more.
I don’t know about other marketers, but for me marketing is a science first (research, analytics, etc.), then an art (communications, advertising, design, etc.). I think it’s the “art” part where our experiences tend to make us who we are as marketers. Never before have we had such a public collision of so many marketers, with so many experiences, as we do today. Marketers have multiple platforms (blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) to share their experiences and their agendas.
Thankfully all marketers are not created equal or we’d be seeing the same marketing regurgitated over and over. Maybe it’s all of these experiences that create great marketers and marketing…or not. What do you think?
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Tags: marketers, Marketing, marketing experience
If you put a group of people in a room from almost any profession nobody seems to do things the same way. It is important to have an open mind and realize that efforts can completed in other ways.
To me, the first step is to have all marketers agree on the definitions of the terms they use (something that finance people, for example, don’t have problems with). Ask a finance person what NPV is and how to calculate it, and you’ll likely get the same answer just about anywhere you go in the world. Ask a marketer what a segment is (or how to segment a market) and you’ll get thousands of different definitions. This is one (important) reasons why marketers have such little respect in organizations.
Hi Beth,
My two-cents on this is that “marketing” has had to evolve and change in an enormous manner over the years. Classic marketing was about campaigns, up-sell, cross-sell, sell-through, segmentation, ad buys, etc. Then CRM and all of the analytical tools and segmentation hit. Add “customer expereince” to the mix, and there is now an additional layer of tools and processes and an expanded reach of what marketing means and what competencies an ace marketer must possess.
It’s a discipline with a moving target. I’m personally glad that it’s expanded and evolved. But Beth, you’ve hit on an important point – which is that as marketers, we haven’t put our collective arms around how to define, discuss and proceed with our discipline.
What do you think?
I happen to have a lot of insight into this:
.
I didn’t go to school to be a marketer…I was an English major. I was never formally trained or given much guidance on the correct, incorrect or otherwise gray areas of how to market.
Thus, I’ve gone my whole (admittedly short) career relying on self taught tenets, reading blog posts/insights from great thinkers, and pure instinct.
Thankfully, a lot of this stuff just comes naturally to me. Otherwise, it would be hell. Instead it’s heaven
Hi Beth.
It is not the first time I have been wresting with a thought to have it voiced by you. My challenge in the last week has been to put myself in front of jolly good “traditional” marketers who have not yet added social media into the mix. Apart from bringing me back to my marketing roots, it forced me to really demonstrate how social media tools and thinking adds to the entire marketing mix.
The fundamental principles surrounding great marketing apply today as much as they did yesterday. Yes, new tools have emerged. Indeed audiences are changing and absolutely, real-time understanding is now not only easier to obtain, but crucial in keeping your competitive advantage, but marketing is still marketing and “traditional marketing tools and processes are very much still alive.
I think I am the world’s Most marketers are behind the times because their ideals and strategies are weak and pointless.
I totally agree with Allen and Jeanne. It’s challenging to work collaboratively with other marketers and internal marketing staff when we haven’t come to terms with overall marketing (and communications) definitions. Because titles, education, and experience vary, many professionals are biased in their perceptions of whose role is whose, which discipline is the parent or the sub-set, etc. The BIG question is – how do we resolve this dilemma?
Having grown up in the “art” side of the business until I became an account person and then client, I fully agree with her analysis that there is no common language about marketing, the metrics of success or even the implementation of progams.Most clients are clueless on this issue, too, so their agencies have to help them get through most industry meetings without guns and knives. Frankly, I am glad that there is room for wiggle here as it makes life interesting and less regimented than, say, an actuary…and a whole lot more fun.
Marketing doesn’t leave much room for discussion. It is what it is. It’s a concept that one applies to markets. If the outcome is wrong then don’t blame the tool, because it is just you that made the wrong decisions.
The AMA has a definition of what it is and that is what we all agree to conform to. Otherwise you are not part of the tribe. Every marketing textbook conveys the same message of what it is; otherwise it would not be in print.
Applying marketing by the rules isn’t easy. The complexity since Kotler has certainly increased, but that does not dismiss the true professional from staying on the newest same page. After graduation it takes several more years to get comfortable. You have to learn and exercise relentlessly how to juggle at least 7 balls at the same time. The same goes for pilots, surgeons, lawyers, marketing professors, etc.
Now as in every profession there are the good ones (leading early adopters) and the bad ones (lazy laggards) and the ones that really screw up (outliers). That’s 101 statistics or Darwin’s evolution and the survival of the fittest. I wouldn’t let the below 80% group speak up about what our profession actually is.
Humbug.
A splendid post. I agree with Bas.
Marketing is very much like a field of complex science: although the central idea is there, its movers are continuously arguing which area is the best.
Keep those posts coming!
The lexicon needs refreshing, because the basics no longer apply. Where there was once textbook agreement, there is not amorphous chaos.
Take positioning, for example.
Positioning is no longer possible, because like it or not you are being positioned by your prospect, customer and competitor. The key now is to find out what that position is and either own it or, if it doesn’t resonate, nurture and prune it through active social engagement.
Marketing Strategy is not exclusively outbound, it is interactive.
Ed, I really like what you said: “Positioning is no longer possible, because like it or not you are being positioned by your prospect, customer and competitor.”
We can make efforts to position our organizations, but in the end, the brand is defined by our prospects and customers.
@NickStamoulis, totally agree that challenges can be solved if we have open minds (sometimes politics, er, I mean agendas get in the way…). That said there are marketing standards when it comes to the “science” side of marketing that I would hope as marketers we could have at least some agreement.
Your meeting reminds me of when I had to beg for a website back in the day (“We have collateral to mail, who needs a website…besides we can track requests for collateral via a bounce-back card!” Heh. Remember those days??)
] because there are creative aspects to marketing, but I think at its core there is a science that is taught. We just need to figure out how those principles get lost in translation.
I believe the lazy laggards and outliers probably have fallen victim to the notion that “anyone can be a marketer.” It’s a shame really…I wish our profession had more respect than that.
@AllenWeiss, every text book I have ever used to teach marketing has always had the same definitions. My only assumption is that these definitions change/morph once marketing students hit the real world. I have heard for years that college/university only teaches “theory” and the “real” learning happens on the job. And to a certain degree I’ve bought into that notion…but I have always tried to stick to the principles. To your point, about lack of respect within an organization, I think a lot of that is caused by treating marketing solely as a “shot in the dark” art versus using the science aspect of marketing to present facts, figures and ROI. As I have said in the past, I haven’t worked for one organization (start-up to F500) that has had a marketing plan. What’s that say? How can you get a seat at the table when you don’t even have a plan? And you can’t measure if you don’t have a plan. And it you don’t measure, you can’t provide data, results, etc. Phew! Okay, putting the soapbox away now.
@JeanneBliss, I don’t think any of those things have gone away. Segmentation, campaigns, cross-selling, etc. are all still very important. The difference is that marketers need to understand demographics as well as psychographics (some people like David Meerman Scott and the folks at Pragmatic Marketing also use the term buyer personas) today and the latter is much more complicated then slicing and dicing numbers. I think it’s a huge mistake to abandon what we know/have been taught just because CRM or social media has entered the picture. Customers have always been able to provide feedback (focus groups, 1-800 numbers, customer councils, etc.) it’s just that companies could always sweep the feedback under the rug. Now with customers being vocal online there is no rug so marketers need to adjust once again.
I don’t know about other marketers, but I stick to the marketing principles I know (the science) and evolve my communication (the art).
@StuartFoster, I know you love this field and it’s been great to watch your marketing expeditions. One question for you…where are you learning the principles of marketing? (the science aspect). No offense, but I don’t think instinct works with science…art, yes (i.e. communications). We still need to know who we are communicating with and why otherwise we’ll be chasing our tails and wondering why we haven’t caught it yet.
@AlasdairMunn, I must be psychic!
I don’t think customers are changing…they are just liberated by technology. And that’s what scares traditional marketers. The fact that their customers are more savvy then them should scare them.
@CaptoMarketer, weak and pointless, eh? And you call yourself a marketer…oh, the irony!
@ElaineFogel, solving the dilemma will be a tough one because there are a lot of politics and egos at play too. I had a CEO of a company where I worked many moons ago tell me that “as soon as I realized that marketing was a part of sales the better off I’d be.” I realized at that moment that no matter what I did as a marketer would be deemed worthless if it didn’t support the sales team and their comp plans (versus the customer). If I wasn’t a strong marketer, I might have believed that silly notion and learned a lot of bad habits.
@SteveJohnson, I believe there is common language, but as Allen said there are tons of definitions around something as simple as segmentation and that’s a problem. As for metrics of success, that’s easily solved with measurable objectives and ROI…both of which have simple formulas. I don’t think we’d want marketers to be like accountants or actuaries [shudder the thought!
@BasBerkenbosch, I have to say I completely agree with you. Well, except the AMA definition…it’s too long and convoluted for anyone, even a great marketer, to remember.
@EdAlexander, I have to disagree with you there…the basics of marketing haven’t changed. And positioning is still needed. How can a company allow itself to be positioned by competition or customers? I think that would be a disservice to the company. It’s the marketer’s job to first have an understanding as to how the company/product/service is positioned against competition and second how the company/product/service is positioned in the customer’s/prospect’s/sharholder’s/stakeholder’s mind. Only then can the marketer properly brand. I hope we aren’t confusing positioning with branding here.
As for marketing strategy, I agree that integrating customer interaction is important in all aspects of marketing from product.
Great post, Beth. Thanks. I continue to learn from others, even if we don’t always agree. But it’s a great reminder that we all learn, interpret, and work differently.
re: StuartFoster & Steve Johnston
Join the club
Marketing is a field that many people enter from other disciplines or working up from a junior position.
I’ve worked with any number of managers and VP’s with “Marketing” in their title but not in their formal education.
I’m not saying this is bad or good but it does add to that lack of agreed definitions and knowledge baseline.
Along similar lines are marketers that feel compelled to use awkward definitions that they can trademark or use in a manner to suggest everyone else is wrong. A small group to be sure but it annoys me