Marketing or communications?
“Marketing is the art of creating positive and profitable interactions with people, delivering products and commercial services that people care about.”
Marketing is about creating and managing intangible assets – customer and channel relationships and brands – to maximise shareholder value. Every point of contact an organisation has with people will shape their view of your brand… from how you handle a prospective employee’s first application; to how you engage with your clients; the products you make; how you deliver your service; right down to how you dump your rubbish.
Technology has always driven marketing and communications starting with the industrial revolution. From the early 20th century marketing focus on distribution, through to the aggressive advertising and selling in the late 1940s, up to the emergence of branding some 40 years ago, with its emphasis on understanding what customers wanted and meeting those needs, marketing is constantly evolving.
We are now in the age of individual marketing – based on building direct relationships with individual consumers through personalised communications. Mass customisation of products and ecommerce have also transformed the way consumers engage with brands. The new consumer-facing marketing is all about marketing directly to the individual providing superior value through personalised products and services, catching up with the way that B2B marketing have always engaged.