(Images from gapingvoid.com)
It’s so shameful to admit that I don’t know anything about Marketing. I was shocked to know that all I know about Marketing was wrong. I was so wrong when thought Marketing is just the progress to tell target audience about the product and its features.
In this morning, my friend Linda Tieu told me that Marketing is the process of research, feature listing, positioning and planning, to improve the value of products, and to target the strategy of making, distributing and selling the product. This is not about the product, this is about the decision making and about the plan. She shared me some case studies to help me recognized what is the different of Marketing, PR, Advertising and Branding… She also taught me that Packaging was a “P” that helped Apple growing their market share, why she doesn’t think she can be success in Vietnam, and gave me some resources what helped me understood clearly what she said.
Bad news: I have to learn Marketing in methodical way. Good news: I have a chance to review all my vague knowledge about Marketing. Certainly, I am a Web Developer and I don’t expect that I can be a good Marketer. But while I don’t know what Marketing truly are, I should try my best to terminate this pain.
It’s good to read that, Ban. I was a tech guy like you and I’m still a tech guy but have the love with Mkt. It’s hard to said that you need to read the books named A, B, C… like some guys did but happy to read your thought bout this.
Everyday, we’re marketer. We talk bout ourselves, bout everything…and we try to prove our point. This is marketing. So, you’ve never had this pain, dude. Let’s go with the flow and keep your patience.
There was a time I even can not separate Marketing, Sales and PR. We all have a time that we don’t know before we know.
There was a time I think that marketing is advertising and try to make people know about the product that we produced, know about our promotion campaign, our product brands… as much as possible. But no, that’s just a tool of marketing. Marketing is far more than that. It’s research –> understand what market want –> then impact with other department like R&D, factory… to produce that products. Marketing is well know about the market, to decide the quantity of products will be produced, and plan how we sell that products (advertising, pr, promotion appear in this stage).
So we see, the most important part of marketing is not just advertising, promotion, tvc nor printads. PR and Branding even more difference story. The most important of marketing is decide which product will produce, positioning it and define which kind of people will use that product (segment determine) and how to bring that product to exactly the right customer at the right time,… and not just only that.
So I ofter say: Marketers who just talk about the promotion, discount… is a bad marketer. Look at Louis Vuitton, they sell a bag with very high price but never have sales promotion.
That’s why I love marketing, and lucky for me, I’m doing what I love.
Just share some of my opinion, I’m still learning.
One more story I would like to share. When I was at VON, at that time I lead Marketing department. In a meeting of management board to define working process, the CEO want WPE (web product executive) will be the one who decide what product will be born. And that was became a big disputation between me and CEO.
As I say, Marketing have to be the most well-know about the market insight. Because marketer equipped many weapon (market insight, research, survey, report…) so he will know when and what the market want. When I ask CEO: how can WPE know that while they are not in the front line? He answer: actually he will be the one who decide which product will born. I said: “Even though CEO is not the one who do that job”, then he become angry with me and finally the process go that way, few months later, I’m out.
This story show me that my CEO was thought that Marketing is just to sell what they have to sell, that’s all.
Sorry for my too many words comments
Well, well, it’s a surprise to me when reading this blog. I thought you’ve already understood what Marketing means to us. Not long time ago, I talked about the “management process”, after that you told me about the “progress”. And I thought it was clear. But now it’s really disappointed that all those mean to you is “just the progress to tell target audience about the product and its features”. However, it’s fine now.
There’s no word for me to say about the goddamn “Marketing” because Ms. Linda Tieu made it perfectly. So, I’m going to tell you another things which are also relevant.
I’m not a marketer and lack of exp. So, I’ll say what is from my little exp and the thing I’ve learn by myself. I really don’t understand why you always want to find out the differences between Marketing, Advertising and PR now? It’s fine. But to me it wastes your time and makes everything so confusing. After you learn all the basic things, it will be automatically distinguished by themselves. Don’t spend your time, your brain on such things. Just fuck it and don’t worry the big things which they talk out there all the time. Read books to build up you background. Then, all the big things become a cake.
Another problem is like this: For example, I want to learn Web technology. I study HTML, VB, CSS, PHP. Then, I found out ASP is damn nice. I have to learn it! Then, they talk so much about Ajax. It’s so good and I want to know it, too. After all, what did I get? I think you’re so excited. Calm down and slowly study it. It’ll be ok ^^.
I’ve never had a proper Marketing course at university, or done any marketing in real life. But of all the things I’ve read so far, I believe in those:
- Everyone is a marketer.
- We don’t sell products, we sell meaning and stories.
- Traditional methods are still at the heart of the field but I believe you can survive with social media. I want to side with the new ways of doing things.
I’m reading Tribes from Seth Godin, it’s a pretty good book, I’m not going to tell you to read it because if you find it interesting, you’ll look for it yourself
I just wanna share this with u that we all don’t need to be a master of marketing. However, understanding and thinking like a marketer is really useful, especially when we are playing on the market ground. The beauty of marketing, as far as I have seen, lies in its powerful approach to the business. And combining it with your tech knowledge, i hope that we soon have a great thing emerging in the Internet.
Thanks you all for comment here!