The internet is full of folks stamping an organic sticker on plastic apples doused in pesticides. Bright, shiny, plastic apples. Please don’t eat them. They are not real.
For this reason among others, the world of online marketing has grown to become an ever-maddening place. I love to hate and love to share my perspective. Confused already?
Welcome to marketing 101 from the lens of one marketing maven who still cares to stand firm on crafting only true quality with complete credibility in the creation of content in every context. On that note, please enjoy this bit of a blurt of a rant on Marketing - what it is, why it is, where it is (...everywhere).
Any universal sense of authenticity and integrity is almost nowhere to be found online.
From artificial bylines to content crapped out by clunky chatbots, I’m not sure how much longer this terrible method of overnight pop-up Easy Bake Oven calamity will continue. And I completely refuse to contribute to what is nothing but fraudulent business. Not me, and not mine.
Marketing, at the center, is communication. It’s the communication between a buyer and seller. It’s not social media. It’s not clever billboards, which are advertising - one of many elements under the massive umbrella of marketing, aka the business of communication.
Marketing takes many forms. Ultimately, it exists to expose something for sale to specific people who will buy it. For example, you wouldn’t think about those audaciously frou frou organic avocado oil vegan bone broth treats you just bought if you had not experienced communication causing you to think your dog wanted, needed, or could benefit from them. See?
Did you see what just happened there? Marketing makes us think we want, need or could benefit from what it is cleverly positioned to sell. Psychology.
As much as marketing is communication, marketing is also, very much, psychology. In fact, just last year, I shared a post on social media where I defined marketing as communication supporting the psychology of sales.
See, again, what just happened?
Sales. The seed planted at the start of every marketing effort with a dash of hope (and hella plans and analytics and algorithms and agendas and strategies all carefully placed like delicate dominos) that it will bear juicy fruit and produce ROI - the golden ticket of return on investment.
Badabing. There you have it. Marketing in a nutshell is much more than just those strategically placed, impeccably timed, this-is-meant-for-me ads you see for stuff you don’t need, want, or even know exists until you see it as you scroll social media. Those ads are not divinely timed. They are calculated cold as the cash they project to rake in like freshly fallen autumn leaves.
Marketing is the all-encompassing communication supporting the psychology of sales. All of it. From the font style to the carefully chosen wordplay on your tube of toothpaste to that same stuff you see decorating the shampoo bottle on the shelf in your shower. From the meticulously designed packaging on everything in your food pantry to the brand names of products you choose when looking for something new. That’s all marketing. It’s all on a mission to sell something to you.
Sometimes, and most often, marketing is on a mission to sell something you don’t need. But here’s the kicker: You still don’t need it at all. But now you want it. Because you saw it. And you liked something about it. So now you think you need it, and thus, the marketing continues.
