# What marketing is In short, marketing is the skill of conveying [value](values-quality.md) to others. - This value can range from a personal brand all the way up to a large organization's public image. - While most other domains of a business are cost centers (e.g., [accounting](money-accounting.md), [law](legal-doctrines.md), [IT](computers.md)), marketing is exclusively a profit center. In practice, there are only 3 ways to make marketing increase an organization's revenue: 1. Get the message to more people. 2. Request more money per person. 3. Sell more things to people who already purchased something. Marketing is a broad concept about the process of selling goods or services, starting with before the customer knows about it and through the business relationship: 1. Research to learn what the public wants and invent a solution for them (market research). 2. [Tailor the appearance](engineering-design.md) of something to show people it has value (product design). 3. Show it as a [story](stories-why.md) to the public to make people aware of it (exposure). 4. Make lists of people who might want it (lead generation). 5. Inform or persuade leads that they should invest in the product (selling and closing the deal). 6. Follow up with them later to make sure they're satisfied, and possibly interested in future products (retention). ## The four P's of marketing Product - what are you delivering? (not always tangible or sold for money) - Vague things (e.g., the feeling of goodwill) can be a product. - A [job hunter](jobs-1_why.md) is marketing skills, time, and energy. - A humanitarian request (call to action) advertises a transcendent purpose. - Anyone who wants to be a social media influencer is trying to use their [personality](personality.md)-based [performance](results.md) to gain others' attention. - [Religious evangelism](evangelism.md) is advancing a theological/philosophical perspective, with [religion](religion.md) itself being a passive marketing movement. Price - what does it cost? - Even free things have an [opportunity cost](people-decisions.md) in time, focus, attention, etc. - In our [Over-Information Age](https://stucky.tech/purpose/), paying attention is the most significant thing a person can do, so treat it with respect. Place - where are you delivering the product? - Even on the internet, the product has a type of location. Promotion - how are you communicating the product's value? - Promotion includes what types of media you're using and its public image. - Successful marketing evokes [meaning](meaning.md) within us through an [emotional connection](mind-feelings.md) to a brand. ## Meaningfulness Marketing is a resonating message that the product is the precise connection the potential consumer needs to find [meaning](meaning.md) and [purpose](purpose.md). - The message is designed to make the recipient [feel important](power-influence.md). - Without that interpreted meaning, the marketing is a complete waste of time and the money would be better-spent on simply improving quality or lowering price. The product has to be remarkable, which doesn't necessarily mean weird, cheap, expensive, big, or small. - That meaning comes from how the consumer interprets the provider [performing](people-contracts.md) for them, *not* from how the consumer sees the product compared to competitors' alternatives. - Marketing words tend to use verbs more than nouns (e.g., "shopping" versus "shop", "investing" more than "invest"). - Focus heavily on the "why" questions from consumers, not just "what". The best thing is to assume people are selfish, lazy, uninformed, and impatient. - Selfish - tell them why it matters to *them* and what the product is for. - Lazy - give the minimum required investment they must make. - Uninformed - *you're* responsible to inform them. - Impatient - inform them with as few words and as little time as possible. The only way to find that meaning is to create a distinctly human connection through the [design](engineering-design.md) of marketing materials. - Simply making promises and keeping them is enough to start building a brand. - To create connection and avoid being boring, marketing professionals *must* [take risks](entrepreneur-1_why.md) to disrupt [established patterns](habits.md). - A marketer never gets to dominate the domain, and serves more to curate [fashions](trends.md) that others will *want* to maintain. A lasting, marketable product has an original and distinctive competitive advantage. - Being dependable and sincere never stops being fashionable. - The only true competitive advantage is when competitors can't imitate it. - Competing on cost is only possible with access to the poorest parts of the world, but comes with other risks, and there's technically no bottom to that competition. ## Trends Marketing "eras" arise through how society's [progress](trends.md) from rural to mass-industrialization increases everyone's need to compete. Simple Trade Era - People make most of what they consume. - In a Simple Trade Era, luxuries and raw materials sell the most. Industrial Revolution - Technological growth creates a larger scale of products. - Mass-produced items improve the quality of products. Entrepreneurship - Multiple companies start competing. - In an Entrepreneurship Era, competing is more important than competence. Production Era - Companies start emphasizing lower costs and increased productivity. - Production Era companies stay competitive by looking inward to improve their products. Marketing Era - Companies create distinct brands to form associations with customers. - Marketing Era companies must build brands that create and satisfy niche markets. Relationship Era - Companies need to maintain customers through sustaining relationships. - Relationship Era companies must manage their image by making personnel customer-oriented, emphasizing training, managing social media narrative, and empowering employees. Individualization Era - Companies use data to tailor each customer's experience differently. - Individualization Era companies must use a *lot* of database management to find [patterns](symbols.md) across customers. ## Customers' decisions Every consumer's [decisions](people-decisions.md) run through a product-seeking cycle: 1. Recognize an unfulfilled need 2. Search for information to fulfill the need 3. Compare alternatives from gathered information 4. Purchase or invest in a decision 5. Respond after purchasing by comparing expectations with reality People only purchase four kinds of products: 1. Shopping products critical to a lifestyle 2. Convenience products that make life easier 3. Specialty products that appeal to a specific need or want 4. Unsought products the customer doesn't know exists Multiple factors determine how much they're willing to invest: - Previous experiences - Interest in the product - Perceived risk of negative consequences - Beliefs about competing products - The current situation and what it calls for - How much others may see their investment People get products for various reasons: - Basic needs (e.g., food) - Replacements (e.g., household items) - Urgency or scarcity (e.g., medications) - A high value (e.g., a sale) - A cause (e.g., bake sale) - Name recognition If a product is marketed well, people will believe taking action toward it will give more value, [meaning](meaning.md), or [purpose](purpose.md) than its [opportunity cost](money-economics.md) or alternatives: - Adapting their lifestyle for the product - Identifying with the culture associated with the product - The effort and sacrifice needed to acquire the product - The product is worth maintaining ### Psychological connection Their [meaning](meaning.md) comes from how they interact with the product. - Control - how much they can manage their experience - Adaptability - how much they can augment their experience - Feedback - how and when the product receives updates - Communication - how much the customer feels heard Triggers connect to subconscious meanings (risky to build a brand on). - Language - highly relative words and phrases that associate to thoughts - Symbols - designs through the senses that associate to a memory - Sensations - interpretations of senses (too challenging to market with) Customer desires vary in intensity: 1. Impulse - the least intense connection with the customer, usually only with low-cost or generic products 2. Habitual - habits from a need for convenience or efficiency - Great products create a consumer habit, even when once a month, from high-quality content or product. 3. Engagement - things that grab customer attention throughout the experience (the stickiness factor) - Customers must see the product as unconventional, unexpected, and contrary to prior wisdom for it to "stick". A huge part of conveying the meaning comes down to [brand management](marketing-brand.md) ### Base motivations A. Candy - fun, enjoyable, customers can live comfortably without it - Beauty through physical improvement - Creation in producing something new or original - Freedom from living with unwanted constraints - Harmony in a balanced relationship to the whole - Oneness with things around us - Wonder and awe in the presence of something beyond explanation B. Vitamins - non-essential but helpful, important but not urgent - Accomplishment through attaining goals or status - Community from closeness with others - Enlightenment by appealing to logic or inspiration - Truthfulness through honesty and integrity C. Painkillers - solves a painful problem, necessary when they need it - Answers to pressing issues - Duty from fulfilling a responsibility - Justice from fairness and equality - Redemption through atonement or forgiveness from past failure or decline - Security from risks of loss or worry - Validation of one's value and worthiness of being respected ### Observations Customers observe many, many details about the product and its associated environment. - Successful marketing professionals consider *all* the factors that would affect a consumer's [bias](mind-bias.md). The product itself: - Attributes/[design](engineering-design.md) of the product - [Emotional reaction](mind-feelings.md) from the product and its implications - Price and quality of the product compared to others - Where the company made the product (can make it cheaper or inspire loyalty) - Use, application, and benefits the products may give the customer - The class of the product related to others - Past viewing of the product from branding - Experience with the product - How the company distributes the product [Color](engineering-design.md), in particular, can make consumers [feel](mind-feelings.md) a company's implied message: - 85% of buyers choose a product on color alone. - 93% of buyers care about a product's visual appearance. - Typical spenders (~61% of the people) often prefer pink or sky blue (e.g., clothing stores). - Cheap spenders (~24% of the people) often prefer navy blue and teal (e.g., banks and department stores). - Irresponsible spenders (~15% of the people) often prefer orange, blue, or black (e.g., malls, clearance sales, and fast food). The market environment itself: - Other product users' personality traits and lifestyles - Other customers' motivations about the product - Why highly important customers like the product - Differences from competitors' products or the global marketplace - Technological limitations of the product and its possibility of becoming obsolete - Legality of the product, the ability to protect intellectual property, and how much it will cost ## Marketing methods There are many conventional distribution channels to market a product: - Printing and sending fliers and pamphlets. - Paying to have advertised content posted on a billboard or literature. - Share via [word-of-mouth](people-conversation.md). - Networks of [friends](people-friends.md) or [professionals](jobs-specialization.md). - [Direct sales](marketing-sales.md) through staff. The product itself can convey through multiple avenues as well: - Sending straight to the customer: - Direct through mail-order, website, or a catalog - Company sales staff - Digital download or over the internet via [cloud service](computers-distsys-cloud.md) - Sending through a third party: - Through a retail store - Through a wholesaler - With a third-party agent - Through independent representatives - Making and fulfilling bids on [contracts](people-contracts.md) on a market. The internet has opened up a wide variety of new advertising and distribution approaches: - Paying for advertised content on a website. - Paying search engines for sponsored sites. - Hosting a website yourself. Other advertising approaches are much more subtle than a blatant advertisement: - Hire a popular media personality to endorse a product. - Maintain social media accounts. - Host or attend trade shows. - Distribute product catalogs. - Provide dealer and distributor incentives. To that end, most marketing requires maintaining various [designs](engineering-design.md): - Logos, including favicons and avatars for websites - Cards and letterheads - Brochures - Signage - Interior design If you can build attention, expect your message to permute into a simpler one: - If you build content on a small podcast, others may write an article summarizing it. - The article they write will draw attention from a niche, who develop their own ideas. - Within a few weeks or months, your idea will have taken on an entirely different form than when you first expressed it. ## To stay ethical, don't overdo it When done correctly, marketing *does* work. - An object that sells for $10 can easily sell for $15 or $20 with the correct amount of publicity, attention, press events, and website design. - With the right story that conveys the correct meaning to the right audience, an object that's free or nearly worthless can sell as a luxury product. - However, there are limits to its effectiveness: barring [the economy changing](money-economics.md), a $10 commodity will never sell for $100. Unfortunately, in our [over-information society](information.md), many marketing messages miss the mark in several possible ways: 1. The message style becomes background noise and drowns out any conveyed value. - Customers will see it as a tired trope that may even imply the seller is potentially [lying](people-lying.md) (e.g., "satisfaction guaranteed"). 2. The message will foster a [group affiliation](groups-large.md) with some customers, but alienate the rest. - The number of potential leads is already a minority relative to the population at large. - As a statistical reality, any interest that's *not* directly related to the product will represent a minority perspective. - Therefore, adding any secondary group affiliation (e.g., [political views](politics-conservativeliberal.md)) is probably adding a minority view onto a minority view. 3. Any [newly trending](trends.md) additions to the product can easily deter customers. - Only early adopters will want the new trend, and the early majority will be skeptical until it has been proven to work. - The nature of trends means the product's association with a trend will eventually alienate the *entire* majority (e.g., "[AI](computers-ai-ml.md)-enhanced"). "User engagement" is the marketing industry's buzzword for [addiction](addiction.md). - There are severe [ethical issues](morality.md) with trying to steer people toward your product beyond simply informing them consciously. - We often find [meaning](meaning.md) in sacrifice itself, which makes us susceptible to becoming fanatics over expensive and unnecessary purchases. - [Cults](culture-cults.md), of all types, are established and maintained with effective high-pressure marketing tactics and playing with expectations to motivate people to keep consuming. Ever since Edward Bernays' propagation of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic approach, plenty of marketing has become the subtle art of psychological manipulation. - By using [patterns](symbols.md) that associate to pleasure (especially sexual pleasure), advertisements can sidestep our conscious thoughts. - While these advertisements *work* to generate customers by appealing to their baser desires, it's completely unethical. - From that purpose, many people have found marketing a disreputable trade. A *lot* of the marketing industry is built on bad data. - The occupation of marketing requires constant concern with [image and appearance](people-image-why.md), so it creates catastrophic results when appearance isn't [reality](reality.md). - [Selection-augmenting](mind-bias.md) aspects like ad-blockers and the actual usage of certain media make marketing data deceptively [inaccurate](math.md) about many demographics. - There's plenty of [money](power.md) in selling bad marketing data, so double-check how people and computers gathered it. Marketing is the art of [image](people-image-why.md), and some things *don't* have any form of value to almost anyone. - The marketing is a waste of time if it isn't spreading the message farther, making more money per person, or selling more products to existing customers. - Waste products *might* have value under an [eco-friendly brand](politics-leftism.md), but only if it still fulfills the [purposes](purpose.md) people were pursuing. - Above a certain price, it's impossible to [influence](power-influence.md) to purchase something. - If you're not [staying honest](people-lying.md), you'll have a harder time gaining trust throughout the [business relationship](people-contracts.md). Marketing abuse is a vastly expensive and culturally damaging experience. - Each social platform has its own rules and requirements, which change somewhat frequently, and can be addicting to over-invest into. - [Fashionable](trends.md) things often cost 20-50% more for the same functionality, so effective branding is *not* particularly [budget-conscious](money-3_budget.md). - A marketed product can be so [creative](mind-creativity.md) that it's [art](values-quality.md) on its own, but also doesn't sell the product. - If a brand is *too* [influential](power-influence.md), it may evoke thoughts of [cult-like fanaticism](culture-cults.md). The simplest ways to detect marketing abuse are by observing "glittering generalities" and "title inflation". - Glittering generalities are emotionally appealing phrases stated with conviction that create very close associations to highly valued concepts and beliefs, but give no descriptive information that conveys value to the listener: - Most people on [dating](relationships-marriage.md) profiles are fun-loving, relaxed, exciting people looking for a good time. - Most [résumés](jobs-3_image.md) are submitted by action-focused, hard-working, team-oriented people. - Universities are always offering programs committed to fulfilling personal, academic, and professional goals. - Every new framework for [web development](computers-sofware-webdev.md) is fast, scalable, modular, and responsive. - Generally, a title has a certain meaning with a bestowed importance, but advancing the more positive image of a nicer title can make the title meaningless over time: - Cell phone plans have Unlimited, Unlimited Plus, Unlimited Forever, and Unlimited Prestige - A member can be Platinum, Platinum Plus, or Platinum Blue. - The job called Secretary is advanced to Administrative Assistant and then Office Coordinator. - A person advancing a controversial, [fashionable](trends.md) idea is called a hero, then a martyr if other people disagree. - An antagonist is first backwards, then a bigot, then a racist. Within a few years, people will detect *any* mass-marketing or [image manipulation](people-image-distortion.md) tactic and will learn to disregard it. - While subliminal messaging may appear to work, there's very little [scientific evidence](science.md) that indicates it does anything to influence consumers' [decisions](people-decisions.md). - Avoid [dark patterns and predatory design tactics](engineering-design.md) on your internet content. If you're not sure, well-designed traditional publications that effectively communicate what the product is and what it does are all you need. - If the thing is legitimately good, it's better to sell the thing as it really is and fire consultants who keep charging fees for things you don't understand. - If you aren't getting any traction, you may have [a bad idea](entrepreneur-2_idea.md) or a product almost nobody [wants](purpose.md).