[/caption]Are we really marketing something 24/7? Ourselves? Our world view? The part of town we live in? The kind of computer we use?
Well...yes.
My mate Jules refers to it as social capital, and while in this series he talks about it with regards to a necklace, there's really an element of it in everything we do.
Our workplaces have it as well, and often companies market to themselves and to their employees just as much as they market to potential customers. The transaction is the same, and goes like this:
- A statement is made.
- An action takes place.
- An observer (the employee, the potential customer, my friend at the pub) hears the words and observes the behaviour and then checks if it matches up.
- An opinion based on the correlation between words and deeds is formed.
- We rinse and repeat.
That's marketing people, it isn't rocket science. If your actions do not routinely match what comes out of your mouth, nobody will take you seriously. Marketing is a part of business strategy, a process of aligning a business so that its actions (which is the core function of the business) match up to the words (which is the core function of marketing).
Can someone please remind me why marketing and business development are still arranged at odds with each other?
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