What is your understanding of marketing?

[Chris Bates]

I wholeheartedly agree with that summary Farah, very well written

Perhaps you see split-testing (the action of performing it) as separate from marketing, but the data collected relevant to marketing? Sure setting up / performing the split test is more in the development realm, I still think it's a marketing game.

[v2Media]

It's relatively clear whether a given task is related to marketing, sales or advertising. But in any given project, the work has to be done by in an efficient manner.

Let me draw a parallel to our web development process. There's three production members, a graphic designer, a front end developer and a programmer. The designer is responsible for the graphical layout and user experience. The developer turns flat graphics into working html/css and ensures browser compatibility. The developer also integrates the user interface with the back-end systems. The programmer is responsible for the back-end systems and systems integration.

The designer needs to be familiar with the limitations of webpage development so he doesn't push the envelope of what the developer can and cant do. The developer needs to be familiar with the back-end systems so he doesn't start something that requires a back-end rewrite. The programmer needs to know the capabilities of the front-end so that the systems aren't too difficult for the designer and developer to work with.

In this real world scenario, the duties of all three members overlap. The designer knows a little html/css, the developer knows their way around photoshop and is programming literate, the programmer is adequate with front-end development. At the project onset, each member has their deliverables, however cross-over is required in order to sustain good production flow. When tweaks and simple changes are required, it's a waste of time waiting on the designer to design every button, icon and border. It's a waste of time waiting for the developer to slice every graphic and code every byte of html/css. It's a waste of time for the programmer to wait for every form and report to be micro-managed by the developer.

I see the same applying for marketing, sales and advertising when all three are being handled in-house. Website design, development and programming share a similar, inter-dependant relationship.

[FarahW]

Burgo, yes many people consider PR to be a disciplinary of marketing. PR is, as the name suggests, the act of building goodwill with the company's various publics through different avenues (e.g. building a good corporate emage, handling events, etc).

Just as everyone has said, advertising, etc are all inter-connected. So if by definition advertising is any paid form of presentation, and you paid for a space in a trade show, would you consider it advertising?

Mark, like I mentioned earlier, I agree all components in a company are symbiotic. A cog is useless unless it is part of a greater machine. Let us take Burgo's mention of the trade show for example. If you were to attend an IT expo, who would you send? What would you bring? Who would you focus on? If, for example, you were there specifically to capture the Chinese market, you would bring your corporate profile pack written in Mandarin, send your PR guy along with the sales team because the Chinese value working relationships, and because impressions are important to them, you would opt for a booth with all the trimmings.

To achieve your goals, you need to understand the strength of each person on your team. A big company has departments mainly to understand the strength of each group, but I assume a small company would know who to utilize with each need as well. Just because smaller companies don't have the traditional split of departments doesn't mean that there isn't recognition of the different duties and responsibilities of each person.

There is always a flow within the workplace, and even with "labels", I doubt any one person would, as you say, waste time waiting for the designer to design every icon or border.

Although, interestingly enough, since we have been talking about split-testing, I understand that Google works along that premise!

[scott404]

It`s hard to give a description, For me simply marketing means a process of informing customer to a product.

[YVB]

Some great discussion in these posts - for me marketing is no more than creating demand and creating demand can take on many forms as described in some replies above.

I was invited to speak on this last month and here's a copy of the presentation, which may help http://events.smallbiz.nsw.gov.au/Pr...entationid=158

[FarahW]

Thank you for your link YBV.

Interestingly enough I came back to this discussion because the website informed me someone had replied that 80% of the success of the product is dependent on marketing, and I wanted to tell this person that point of view is not uncommon (although it seems there is no such reply here now!).

Take for example the Blair Witch Project, which cost less than half a million to make, but budgeted $11 million to marketing. Ultimately it grossed almost more than almost $249 million.

In these times when almost no consumer need is unmet, is marketing a more important aspect of business than ever?

[AshleyWhiteBusiness]

What type of marketing do you mean because there are lots. Like affiliate marketing, e-commerce etc...

[CamillaReberg]

Yes, you have the gist of it. An important note is that you will only get paid more if a visitor clicks on the advert of the higher paying advertiser.

Hope that helps. Have a good day!