Back To Basics - Marketing Is Part Of The Business Process

I have touched on this subject before as those hawk-eyed blog readers will doubtless have picked up on, but I think it is a point well worth labouring: marketing as part of the business process. Advertising is not another word for marketing, it is part and only part of the marketing function. ‘Buy this because it’s brill’ is an advertising message. ‘Buy this and get another one free, and then you’re entitled to a loyalty card’ is a marketing message. Yes, it’s oversimplified I know, but I’m sure you get the drift.

There is a culture that prevails in the UK, and quite possibly elsewhere - I haven’t bothered to check as we currently only operate here – that marketing is only for big companies. Oh, really? For the sake of your own future, Mr or Mrs small-business-owner, apply some logic. When do we ever hear of a start-up employing 3,000 people from launch? Big companies had to grow, and at some stage in their corporate lives, were a start-up themselves. Marks & Spencer started life as a market stall, which is also where Lord Sugar – sweet man - first cut his teeth. Red Bull as we know it, doesn’t actually make anything, it is a marketing company started off by an Austrian toothpaste salesman.

While it is not necessary to have the ruthless, driven ambition of an American company to grow, there should be some form of ambition from our small to mid-sized companies otherwise death by complacency will surely follow. I cannot be the only person who knew a small business that was content, had a reasonable turnover, much good will and a sense of stability only to be put out of business by an aggressive competitor that wasn’t afraid to ask customers en masse to buy their offerings.

We have always maintained that marketing is an investment, and suggested that if you are going to spend budget, get someone who really knows what they’re doing to implement it. Logic dictates then that it is probably more of an investment than Mr or Mrs small-business-owner ever thought. It is an investment for survival.