Having sat through a few events and cohort launches this past week, I keep hearing people refer to Marketing as Advertising and Promotion. A little history explains how we got into this mess and why advertising and promotion are merely two things you might do when marketing determines that you should and how.
Go back the 1990s. Marketing meant, well, marketing (it’s never changed, that’s what we’re going to get into).
One way that was and remains best understood is the 4Ps:
- Product
- Placement
- People
- Price
As in, that’s what Marketing covers. Notice, Product, which is to say: under the Marketing team. And notice, “People,” not “Customers.”
Marketing is the work of the market: all of it.
Around 2001, Digital Marketing emerged as a thing distinct from Marketing, because CMOs at that point had no idea what to do about the internet, and 20-year-olds who did were running circles around them.
This made them look bad.
Imagine, you’re a Marketing Veteran, you’ve won awards and do keynote speeches about Brand, Product Development, Customer Profiles, Market Research, Sales, and everything else that is marketing. And this young Paul O’Brien shows up in the company, all full of youthful gumption, and he runs your online marketing stuff through which, in a matter of weeks, he is pulling in more revenue, at lower cost, and with more data, than anything you’ve been capable of doing.,
How do you cope with not understanding?
You tell the Board, “That’s our digital marketing work and yes, it’s impressive.”
See it?
It’s not “Marketing,” it’s something else.
Within a year, online has become the company’s largest budget allocation and you, the Head of Marketing, still don’t understand it. And there is no way you can put this Paul in an executive role… after all, he didn’t come through a well-known Agency, he doesn’t have a Marketing MBA, and hell, he’s too young.
In time, Paul bails because he’s flabbergasted that everyone is still pushing back on this stuff.
As the internet grows, you allocate more of your online budget to Online Marketing Agencies and you’re probably doing this SEO thing you hear about.
And it’s not Paul left that was your death knell, it was when money was moved to agencies that do online, Boards and Executives sort of concluded “Marketing” was dead – “just spend it online!”
Of course, they were wrong, ignorantly and moronically so, but that’s what they thought.
Fast forward a few years and people tried reframing “Online Marketing” to remove the stain of ignorant people from it. Sean Ellis comes to mind, he framed “Growth Hacking,” and bless him for it, it was the first major step that essentially said to the world, “no dumbasses,” we’re not doing this digital marketing, we have data and more, what we’re doing is kind of like what your Tech team does. Of course, what Growth Hacking entails is effectively online marketing, or more accurately, marketing, and that’s my point.
Now, why does that matter?
Because in the interim, and around the same time which puts us at about 2005 now, Companies were gutting Marketing as other people said they needed seniority to run things while “Marketing” was bringing in all these leads
Follow that? Marketing was increasingly reframed as just getting in the leads and driving email to customers, more or less.
- Product people said, “We need Product leadership to run the Product,” something that used to (and still does) fall under Marketing.
- Salespeople said, “I’m the one closing all the business and talking to customers, we need me to be Chief Revenue Officer,” something that used to be, and technically still is, marketing.
- Customer support teams became Communities, Service, and even in many cases, responsible for up selling, so of course, we needed a Head of Community. Community is your market and audience.
- Business Development which is partnerships and big engagements with customers and other entities in the “market” demanded their place too, so we have Head of Partnerships now.
- Even in some cases, HR was elevated. HR you say?? Yes, “People,” from where do you think companies hire? Why do people value a company at which they might work? From the Market and for the same reasons we value a product: brand, messaging, awareness, and demand – Marketing.
Now, I’m not picking on ANY of those being appropriate executive roles so don’t come at me complaining that I’m picking on your jobs, that’s missing the forest for the trees. We’re talking about WHY marketing was reframed and how to fix everyone’s understanding by reconciling things.
Okay, so, at this point, maybe around 2007, Sean and others, like me, are fed up.
Actually, I don’t know if Sean was fed up, I’ve never talked to him about this so I’m just crafting my story from my perspective.
Point being, Marketers (actual marketers, not lead gen jockeys) at this point are getting frustrated because businesses and startups are struggling.
They aren’t doing Marketing anymore. They’re doing SEM or something and don’t really know how, so an agency is probably doing it. And it’s junk. So, they try email lists. They blog or these days, podcast, and that doesn’t work, because they don’t know what they’re doing.
And the Tech crack in my referring to Growth Hacking comes from the fact that startups made it worse. After all, hacking is a startup-y thing where a hackathon is a bunch of coders building solutions. Startups come along and with their CTO founders, start saying things like…
“We don’t need to do marketing yet, we’re not ready.”
“We need funding for marketing.”
“When our MVP is live, we’ll start marketing.”
What they mean is advertising and promotion, not marketing.
Advertising and promotion by the way is something Marketing does after marketing determines its necessary, how, where, and what to do and expect
Notice I used an upper- and lower-case letter on purpose:
Marketing (the team) does advertising after it has done marketing (the work) to get it right IF it’s necessary.
But by this point in the economy and our story, we have small business owners, CTO founders, and others who have no business doing it, trying it, and don’t even understand it, deciding when and if, because they need leads and customers now.
And they don’t actually even do “marketing” to determine that! They just decide they want to do an email newsletter to their list, and they call that marketing.
Inevitably, they fail.
So many of us came along and, kindly, started saying, “that’s not marketing, you’re not doing marketing.”
And people like Sean came along and sort of did the same by saying, “You don’t want to do digital marketing, you want growth hacking,” to reframe people away from only doing one online thing.
He reframed all the online stuff, which is really just part of marketing, as something relatable to the Tech and Product people who didn’t really understand what we do, but who were now in charge.
Alas, it only helped a little, as we finally got rid of the separation of Digital or Online as a thing, so it’s back to just marketing… but Boards, CEOS, and now an army of Revenue, People, Product, and Tech executives and founders, now still think marketing means advertising or promoting to get customers.
Worse, many agencies and partial marketers (like Affiliate Marketers or Email Marketers) still say that what they’re doing is “Marketing” when they’re really only doing a piece of it, with no actual marketing ongoing to direct a business if it even should do that piece, let alone how.
And these pieces, without doing actual marketing, sort of work but not really.
They inevitably fail or fall short.
Causing what?
Causing Investors and Advisors, other Founders, businesses and companies, to these days proclaim, “Marketing doesn’t work!” or “You’re not ready for Marketing”
All of which is ignorance.
Pure and simple Idiocracy.
In the 1970s, economists pointed out that Marketing is the most important thing a company does. Company budgets for Marketing were often 40% of opex. Most.
Unfortunately, ignorance destroyed all that and most businesses and startups have been struggling ever since.
Ever find yourself repeating an idea over and over and thinking, I should really write this down?
Paul O’Brien beat me to it. He shared a powerful perspective on what marketing actually is, and how companies should approach it.
While his post is especially relevant for startups, it’s just as important for any company asking, How can marketing truly drive growth? Businesses run on revenue and profit. Marketing, when done right, is how you get there.
Thanks for putting this into words, Paul
Wow, that’s such incredibly kind praise I’m not even sure how to reply, and that’s not easy to do to me..
I will say this, thank you for sharing this anyone still disagreeing this, or supportive less than, is essentially harming entrepreneurs regardless of good intentions.
It needs to be said much more, bad marketing (of which there is a lot!) != Marketing is bad.
“So many of us came along and, kindly, started saying, “that’s not marketing, you’re not doing marketing.””
Great insights, Yosef! How do you prioritize marketing initiatives? Follow me!
I talk about this all the time with clients, mentees, other marketers.
Communications is exactly that. It’s not marketing.
Social media marketing
Email marketing
Digital marketing
They’re all oxymorons as far as I’m concerned!
We have this crazy situation where ‘marketers’ who’ve been in the industry 10 years don’t actually know how to do marketing!
Excellent insights, Paul O’Brien. Just like in executive search, when companies misdefine marketing’s role, they end up with the wrong leader, and culture suffers. Marketing isn’t just promotion — it’s the strategic lens that ties product, people, and positioning together.
• Wade Allen exactly!!! Why is such a fact so easily lost on people who happily misuse words for things, misrepresenting what they say, do, or need, and causing the very problems they’re seeking to avoid?
Paul O’Brien – it is crazy – it is the Fire, Ready, Aim and expecting a bullseye!
• Wade Allen that’s why I went with the painting, Blind leading the Blind.
My theory is similar but slightly different.
Backstory: My initial introduction to Marketing (and Advertising and Sales) started around 1986 or 87. Long to short, back then, you never said things like “newspaper marketing” or “magazine marketing.” Those who knew spoke of newspaper advertising and magazine advertising. While the medium can be the message, marketing was *never* confused with the channel / medium thru which the marketing messages were communicated.
Sales and Advertising were subservient service providers to the lead dog – no pun intended. Marketing was king & queen.
Then, as you noted, came the internet. Those who did the execution (i.e., advertising and sales) wanted a seat the decision makers table. They wanted the respect and attention that marketing received. From this jealousy, email “marketing”, search engine “marketing”, etc were born. And then eventually, social media “marketing”.
The rest, as they say, is history. And what a pain in the arse it is to this day.
Mark Simchock brilliant addition and I don’t even think it’s different but rather overlooked by me.
Paul O’Brien We’re both right. Both scenarios contributed to the current mess. The irony? Marketing got out marketed by Advertising and Sales. Sad, but true.
Mark Simchock or… Put my thoughts in play. Handicapped by others, Advertising caught on and started saying Marketing to capitalize on the ignorant demand for it.
Kind of feels like my Accelerator criticisms. Everyone started using the work simply because it was what customers wanted to hear.
Preach, Paul.
Great marketers — people who understand what the job is rooted in — are some of my favorite people on the planet. Thoughtful, intuitive, data-driven creative strategists and operators.
Sadly, the majority of people I run into in “marketing” roles today are shallow, boring, greedy and ineffective snake oil salesmen. They end up running businesses into the ground with false promises because they do not show up with the skillset, curiousity or basic business integrity. The type of people whose biggest dream is to be a “thought-leader” that recycles and misquotes other people’s thoughts. To put it nicely
Kana LiVolsi echoes a lot of my sentiment about most Startup Programs. Snake oil that we need to run out of the room for the sake of the entrepreneur.
Paul O’Brien fully agree. The lack of accountability many of today’s “marketers” take when working with brands — especially entrepreneurs — is appalling. Truly do not know how people sleep at night.
No. Marketing is not sales is not business development. Different disciplines, different foci. Market Development, Prospect Development, opportunity development. They should feed each other, they usually don’t.
Miles Fidelman “The purpose of marketing is to create a customer.”
So, help me understand the way you think given that’s what it does.
Doesn’t sales establish a customer? Isn’t product development doing what that potential customer wants and values? And isn’t business development developing business to… Create customers?
But hang on, I didn’t explicitly say Sales is Marketing. You’re making the same mistake I started pointing out: Advertising is not Marketing. So of course, sales is not marketing. Product isn’t explicitly marketing.
Help me understand what I’m failing to explain properly. Everyone who’s taken a Marketing 101 Class knows one of the primary considerations of Marketing is Product (4Ps) but you seem determined to establish that’s all wrong. Or am I missing what you’re trying to say? Or are you proving my point??
More to the point, marketing departments rarely “get it.” (Speaking as someone who’s played product manager, as well as doing a lot of sales & business development.)
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve visited a customer & thrown away all of the slides in our “capabilities deck” – and instead, developed a presentation tied directly to a customer’s situation, needs, mindset, and hot buttons.
When it comes to big ticket items, business development is more about relationship development over years, sales comes down to responding to specific situations at specific times – writing proposals when an RFP finally comes out, that’s full of words from the white papers & presentations you’ve provided in the time leading up to the RFP.
At best, Marketing can get your name out there, establish a reputation, maybe develop some leads – after that, unless you’re selling commodities products, online – we’re into business development & sales – where mass messaging just doesn’t work.
Miles Fidelman misses the point. All of that is “marketing.” People doing it poorly does it make it less so. Marketing isn’t a right or wrong, it’s the listen and optimize engine. All kinds of reasons, and I mentioned some in the article, that even “marketers” fall short.
This is a matter of definition and fine distinctions. I’ve always seen marketing about making a MARKET – a definable collection of prospects, and arguably a market structure with distinct buying patterns. Business Development is about developing specific business (e.g., chasing a specific RFP). Sales is about actually converting a prospect into a buyer, closing a specific contract. At least that’s the way I saw it, while doing it for a living
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