Do a quick Google search and you’ll see there are many opinions on what the purpose of marketing really is: to drive sales, inform your customers, brand your message. There are many smart blogs and articles written by many smart people all trying to explain why they’re right about the purpose of it. Well, I’m not here to do that. Either I’m not one of these smart people or I just see the issue a little differently… I’m sure most of you reading this know what marketing is, or at least have a general sense of it. Many of you practice it on a daily basis-from SEO optimization of your website, pay per click ad campaigns, local newspaper ads, social networking or just word of mouth, all of you probably depend on some sort of marketing to help your business stay in business.
Before we can talk about the purpose of marketing and my opinion of it, we should talk about the problem with it. In a recent industry survey we asked what people need the most help with. The winner? Marketing. So therein lies the problem. Many of you know the importance of it and attempt it on a daily basis, but just don’t feel like you’re doing it correctly. So is there a way to define “correct marketing”? It would seem to me that the correct way can only be discovered if you know the purpose of it. So now we’ve come full circle. Here we are back at the beginning; if you want help with marketing you have to first know what you want help with and you can only you know what you want help with if you know the purpose of your business. You may feel like we’ve fallen into a strange marketing abyss all of a sudden… fear not, we haven’t! Did you notice this time around I said you have to know what the purpose of your marketing is? And to me, that’s the key. It’s up to you and your business or company to decide what the purpose of your marketing is. To many of us, our purpose will be different than the guy across the street. Don’t believe me? Consider this example: consider Starbucks; their marketing is very much in the branding. They see value in increasing the perceived value of their brand. Juxtapose that with your local used car dealer. What does he value in it? Sales. In fact, he probably values the daily sales number over anything else. So immediate sales are the purpose of his company.
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