Definition of Marketing

Marketing is a series of action steps taken to grow customer interest in a product or service to the point of where they have to have it.

Action Step 1: Find the School of Hungry Fish
The first step is to find the school of hungry fish, known as your target market. The process to finding your target market is called market research. Market research is required to identify the customer, keep the customer and to satisfy the customer. In other words, market research will identify your customer and their requirement to earn their trust and loyalty.

The quickest and free method to find a school of hungry fish is through the Internet search engines. Large Internet search engines such as Google and Yahoo have an enormous amount of information on problems people want solved. Google and Yahoo keep a database of keywords people input to search for information on the Internet and the number of websites that contain the searched information.

For example, Joe, a student of XYZ University has a term paper to write on marketing. So he pulls out his laptop computer and types in the keyword search area of Google, “Definition of Marketing”. Immediately a list of resources (websites) is listed in order of relevance. Joe, clicks on the first couple of websites listed and collects the information needed to write his term paper. Joe is happy. And Google adds a tally mark in the demand column of their keyword search database next to “Definition of Marketing”. Google is happy because Joe used their search engine to find the information.

Google freely allows people to access their database of keywords and statistical information. Google grants free access through their Google AdWords Keyword Tool. The tool provides the demand and competition (supply) of a specific keyword. For example if a marketer wanted to know the demand for definition of marketing, they would go to Google AdWords Keyword Tool and type in the keyword “definition of marketing”. The user will immediately see the 12-month average Global Monthly searches for this keyword along with the 12-month average Local Monthly searches. At the writing of this article there are 49,500 Global monthly searches for the keyword, definition of marketing.

Action Step 2: Bait the School of Hungry Fish
The second step of marketing is to bait the school of fish. A fisherman uses worms or shinny metal to attract a school of fish to there fishing hook or net.

Like the fishermen, the market researcher conducts research to determine the best words, color, paper, font, packaging, etc. to attract their target market. The science of knowing what to say, how to say it, where to say it, and how often to say it is called copywriting. Understanding the seven basic human needs and how to deliver is a valuable skill of a marketer or copywriter.

Knowing the type of bait the fish like is part of the challenge. Knowing how to deliver and move the bait so the fish believe it is real; is the other part of the challenge. Simply, the fish must trust that the bait will solve their hunger.

There is a lot of information on how to write copy that attracts your customer’s interest and trust. A good book to start with is “The Copywriter’s Handbook” by Robert W. Bly.

Action Step 3: Build a Lifetime Relationship; Feed the Hungry Fish
Expert marketers keep a customer for a lifetime by solving more than one of their problems.

For example, Amy, president of XYZ, Inc is looking to market her new marketing book. So like Joe the student of XYZ University, decides to open her notebook computer and use Google AdWords Keyword Tool to determine the demand for definition of marketing. She notices the list of similar keyword ideas from Google, which lead her to see that people also need more information on video marketing. So Amy can use this information to either write a second book on video marketing, or include a couple free tips in her new book on video marketing.

Another example of developing a lifetime relationship is Dave of ABC Marketing. He is contracted by John to market a new computer widget. After 9 months Dave has marketed John’s widgets so well that John is profiting high six figures. When Dave and John started working together John did not have any discretionary income to invest. Now that he is making high six figures John wants to invest his profit. Dave through his relationship marketing realizes this problem and refers him to an investment company. John is happy again because his new investment problem is solved because of Dave’s referral. John is now a lifetime customer of ABC Marketing. The referral cost is nothing, but the gain is infinite.

In summary, the definition of marketing is a series of action steps taken to grow customer interest in a product or service. The three main action steps are; (1) Find the School of Hungry Fish, (2) Bait the School of Hungry Fish (3) Build a Lifetime Relationship; Feed the Hungry Fish.

Return from Definition of Marketing to What is an Entrepreneur