Quote:
Originally Posted by czarina
bump for an interesting thread.
Yes, I have had some glorious ideas. Yes, I turned one of them into a reality. Yes, I made a lot of money from it, but not thanks to advertising, but thanks to the product itself.
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"Marketing" is not just a fancy word for "advertising".
Here are the four cornerstones in the traditional view of marketing: product, price, place and promotion. Note that "promotion" is only one of the four. The 4P model is outdated now, but it should give you the basic idea: marketing is far, far more than advertising.
Recognizing the need for a product is a part of marketing. Creating the product to suit that need is a part of marketing. Creating brand and product identities are parts of marketing. Finding proper distribution channels is a part of marketing. Promotion is a part of marketing. Customer communication is a part of marketing. Etc.
Basically, marketing deals with recognizing needs, finding products to fulfill those needs, aligning the specifics of the product with the specifics of the needs, making those with needs aware of the existence of the products that fulfill those needs, and communicating with customers to make sure that their needs will also be fulfilled in the future.
Let's take tube scripts as an example. Marketing would consist of recognizing a need for tube scripts among webmasters if one exists, finding out what webmasters specifically want in a tube script, creating a tube script that has the features that webmasters want, having webmasters give feedback on the finished product and if necessary changing it, putting the tube script in the market at an appropriate price point, promoting the tube script, supporting customers, and using feedback from webmasters to better suit their needs in future versions.