Remind me - What does marketing actually do?

I love it when you stumble across something you created a few years ago and, upon re-reading, decide that it still holds up.

A few years ago I was part of a small workshop at IBM that was challenged with the question of "What is our strategic vision for demand generation?". Grand terminology that can be translated to "What the **** do you do?". The sentence we came up with was a little dry, but I think it captures pretty well what marketing's role is around demand generation (clearly marketing has other responsibilities beyond DG, but this was the focus here).

This is what we came up with:

"Our purpose is to:

Engage in remarkable conversations...

With the right customer communities...

Through the most relevant method(s)...

Which builds relationships...

And creates value for both parties..."

Let me clarify just a little:

Marketing is about conversations rather than a monologue; those conversations need to be sufficiently interesting (remarkable) such that they make people think, engage, share; we know that the decision making units have grown and so it's essential to engage more broadly in the various communities of influence; What is the most relevant method? Actually it's not for you to say - the relevant method is the vehicle chosen by the client/prospect. Demand generation is not just about today's transaction - it's about a dialogue that builds a deepening relationship and that delivers value to both parties - you are looking for immediate and longer term revenue, and the client is looking to solve a business issue.

I keep coming back to this piece of work as a useful checklist to evaluate whether a set of Demand Generation activities is doing what it needs to do. 

Many thanks to Sarah Chatterton, Tony Whitelaw, Martyn Christian, and several others who made key contributions to this output.

Does this work for you? How would you improve upon it?

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Are you a Marketing Fundamentalist?

I've often spoken about how I feel that the 2 qualities that I consider that the best marketers possess are PASSION and CURIOSITY.

Passion is infectious - if you feel strongly about something then it's obvious. You talk with enthusiasm, you're excitement shines through, and you inspire others.In my work life my two main passions are lead nurturing and social networking. Lead nurturing has become a passion because I realised that a focus on improving the dialog that we have as marketers AFTER we've run the event or sent the email campaign could have a profound effect on our performance. And my passion for social networking is driven by the hope that technology could finally be used to help unite people both at work and in their broader lives.

If you can't find something in your job to get passionate about, then perhaps you should think about trying some other job - your days must just drag along with monotony and mediocrity

Both of these passions have been developed as a result of Curiosity. Twelve months ago I did not feel as excited by either of these areas. However by exploring what is possible and taking an informed view on  what could work for me (and what couldn't right now) by passion is stronger. Consequently I feel I could not operate without RSS and the world of Blogs, but am less enthused (for now) about Twitter, Facebook and SecondLife - however I will remain curious.

Last week I came across this 5 minute video featuring Seth Godin via a colleague. For me, what he says about Curiosity resonated very powerfully.

By the fact that you're even looking at this, I guess your demonstrating that you're at least somewhat curious!

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