Marketing is a ‘state of mind’ that must exist in any organisation — public service or private sector — if that organisation is to identify and serve the needs of its various stakeholder groups, in any truly meaningful or effective way.

It is a common paradigm that marketing is a commercial tool designed simply to sell as many products or services as possible. One not uncommon definition is that ‘marketing is the art of arresting the human intelligence for long enough to extract money from it’. It’s not that. That’s mugging.

Period.

As I’ve often talked about, a business or organisation — public, private, profit or not-for-profit — is a ‘marketing organism’ that requires a marketing state of mind in everything that it does to meet its customers’ needs.

Period.

And that means that marketing is about so much more than advertising or promotion. It’s about understanding the needs and wants of existing and potential customers, and then making meaningful connections and developing relationships with each of those groups, time after time after time.

Marketing is the entire business of doing business looked at from the stakeholders’ point of view (all stakeholders, including staff, customers, shareholders, suppliers, communities, etc.). In this environment, marketers should bring a dynamic, powerful and effective approach to the development and implementation of marketing and/or communication strategies.

So how do we do this? Once upon a time it was by advertising, PR and promotions. Today, the digital and online world has generated social media. Social media is not a new ‘what’ in marketing; it’s a new ‘how’. The core concept of marketing has not changed and will never change. Social media simply created a new environment in which relationships can be established and effective marketing communications can take place. Most of these social media platforms even have their own built-in data analytics tools, which enables companies to track the progress, success, and engagement of ad campaigns.

Social media is now at the core of effective marketing. Most marketing activity is a costly waste of money but if social media is fully understood and effectively implemented, it works.

There are an increasing number of social media channels and it is vital that marketers understand each one of them, how they are structured, who their participants are, what they are used for and how to penetrate those markets without seriously rattling their cages — a real risk with social media.

One of the best and most impressive social media brains that I know is marketer and author Linda Coles. And she has written this book in a powerful and effective way that will help all marketers understand the concept and the practice of social media. Highly valuable.

She also brings humour, warmth and a big brain to the book which increases its value enormously.

The single biggest thing that social media has brought to the world of marketing and marketing communications is people. We now recognise and understand more than ever that people do business with people. Companies are no more than legal entities.

And in this environment, Linda is a star, connecting and communicating with people in a constantly impressive manner.

Read the book. Carefully consider what Linda has to say. Integrate it into your business’s activities. Do those things and your business will become even more successful than it already has been.

Brian H. Meredith

CEO of The Marketing Bureau, New Zealand

Former Director of Saatch & Saatchi, UK, and Acting Chief
Executive of the company’s $50 million Manchester Agency