The Real Goal of Marketing

I'm sad.

I just read Chris Sell's post called "The Real Goals of Marketing?" After spending lots of time on Chris's weblog, I can tell you I get the impression he knows a lot about marketing. I love that Chris has enough passion for our customers that he thought about a job in marketing.

When he asked a long-time friend about marketing, here's what he was told (and here's why I'm sad...):

""Marketing is not about giving the customer what he wants, or even finding out what the customer wants and trying to get engineering to create it. It's about trying to sell the customer what you already have -- whether that's product, talent, or pre-conceived notions. If the needs of a customer occasionally overlap with an actual product, that's merely random coincidence.

"Marketing people are customer-focused in the sense of always thinking about why customers aren't buying enough stuff, and how to get them to buy more. You're customer-focused in the sense of caring about what customers need, and helping them accomplish it, even if that doesn't result in selling anything.

"But don't take it so hard. It's not as if I said you were too honest to be a banker, or too smart to be a teacher. (God, what if girls thought you were too handsome to be sexy?)"

WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG.

Problem is, lots of folks in the profession agree with the statements above. Too many still subscribe to the old "broadcast" model of marketing (throw out a message or product to enough people and a lot of it will stick).

But in focusing on understanding and meeting customer needs, marketing becomes a synergistic, simple proposition, a win-win partnership where you're exchanging value for value. A "marketplace" in the purest sense. I've seen far too much success when I was sincerely listening and meeting customer needs to ignore that doing it that way is the easiest way to make money, to sell product, to get visitors to websites, to drive demand.

Chris just nails it:

"My hope is that it's about taking a solution and letting folks that have the matching problem know so that you can trade your solution for their money and both consider yourselves lucky. Is this a naive view?"

No way is that naive. It's insightful and wise.

And for those of you among my marketing peers, please drop Chris a note to let him know how right he is. Folks like him cannot afford to listen to the wrong kinds of influences... :)