What Marketing Really Is

In essence, marketing is delivering value to your customers or clients. Marketing means always focusing on your clients’ needs and desires. Educators and agents in the field instinctively know their job is to find a need and devise services and products to meet that need. Which is also part of the marketing process.

The next step is defining your target audience and figuring out how best to appeal to it. This can involve word of mouth, letters, emails, posters, flyers, brochures, radio spots, newspaper ads, etc. Using a marketing mix—a combination of marketing tools—increases the likelihood your audience will get your message.

What’s key, however, is that your message convey how what you have to offer is of value to your audience. Picture someone trying to persuade you to attend a meeting. You want to know what you’ll get out of the experience. In other words, “what’s in it for me?” Announcing that a program or seminar is taking place isn’t enough. Your program might be great and probably is, but how does your audience know that?
Last, you need to follow through on your promise and deliver the value.

So, marketing isn’t any one thing. It’s more like a process. And it starts and ends with delivering value to your audience.