The Marketing Plaza

Marketing is an elusive discipline with lots of definitions.  I’ve created a few of my own over the years and just when I think I have it nailed, I realize  I don’t.  Here’s my latest definition of marketing:

Marketing is those thing you do to touch customers and feed their desire to do business with you.

I like this definition for a number of reasons:

1. It implies that marketing is a sum of many different things. No one outreach effort is marketing. Marketing is the sum of a many tactics based on a strategic campaign.
2. It puts “customers” front and center as your raison d’etre. You market in order to present yourself in an attractive way to prospects and current customers.
3. It talks about “feeding a desire.”  Great marketing makes people want to do business with you.
4. It separates marketing from sales.  This part is subtle. Again, it notes that marketing is feeding a desire not closing a sale. If the customer is primed to want to do business with you due to on-target messaging, closing the sale should be easier for the sales force.

Let me know what you think.  Is it  a definition you think might stand the test of time? Do you have a better one? Let’s hear it!