So what is Marketing and more to the point, what is Internet Marketing?
If you do a search for Marketing, you’ll find more definitions than you can shake a stick at! Convoluted to say the least. You’ll get all the classical definitions that they’ve been teaching in the business schools for decades, and some new ones aimed at keeping in step with the times or adapted to specific areas.
If you’re anything like me, you’ll get the feeling that the whole idea of Marketing means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. I really don’t believe it’s difficult to answer the question at all. As with a lot of things in life, some concepts have been over-analyzed, and this is one of them.
There have been many brilliant minds that have focused on the question. They’ve all tried to come up with one definitive all-encompassing sentence. So I may as well make a stab at it. This is what I believe is a concise definition of Marketing:
Marketing is a process, ignited by observation, involved with the identification, creation, and execution of solutions that create and/or satisfy a demand.
Is that a broad enough definition? I think so. Did you notice any of the words business, profit, product, or market in my definition? No. They’re irrelevant.
Marketing is everything you do. Period! Business or not. Marketing is a requirement of existence!
When you are a baby you cry. You cry because you’re hungry and need to draw attention to yourself. Why? So someone will notice there is a demand which requires a solution. This is not selling, it’s Marketing!
In the study of biological systems, scientists acquire knowledge by learning how organisms “make a living”. Again, its marketing, satisfying a demand. Evolution is totally concerned with marketing. Every system in the universe evolves as a response to pressures which require complex solutions to maintain and promote proliferation.
You’re very existence requires marketing at every level. One could almost interchange the word living with the word marketing.
You may be asking what this has to do with Internet Marketing. My definition leads me to the conclusion that if you have a presence on the internet, you are Internet Marketing! There is no escaping it! It doesn’t matter if you are searching or providing results for searches. It’s all Internet Marketing. Everyone online is trying to Satisfy a Demand, theirs or someone else.
It makes no difference where, why, when, or how, it’s all Marketing. It’s not just about Sales Techniques or How to Make Money with Google Adwords. Everything we do to sustain and promote our existence is Marketing!
If you don’t profit from your activities, you have still been marketing, just not successfully. The outcome doesn’t make the process meaningless. Existence necessitates marketing, successful or not. If you are continually unsuccessful, you will cease to exist.
So why am I even bringing any of this generic argument up?
I have been reading and watching the types of activities that have been going on within the Make Money Online Niche and the blogosphere in general and I am seeing a disturbing pattern.
I see comments all the time suggesting that it’s not right to be flogging affiliate programs, or that it’s nice to see a blogger not flog products. Give me a break! If you don’t want to buy something, don’t. I understand that lots of bloggers or site owners are selling stuff they’ve never tried and saying it’s great. The opposite is also true. It is up to you to buy the product or not. No one forces you to buy anything. Just be careful. One product may be great for an individual but not appropriate for another.
I’ve also seen one of the most successful Internet Marketers of ALL TIME, John Reese, being referred to as a “prolific e-book salesman” by Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins of Mashable fame. Poor Mark is worried that Twitter will be abused by insincere marketers. He then goes on to say he’s a fan of Marketing in a follow-up post. Yet this guy IS ONLINE drawing attention to himself. Marketing HIMSELF. What the hell is twitter anyway if not a social marketing platform? Duh! Unbelievable!
Internet Marketing is not the horrible thing that many make it out to be. Either is any other marketing. It is what it is – satisfying the demands of you’re existence. Sure I could get into the nuts and bolts of every subset and ferret out the best practices. I could also go on about ethics, logic, or even fairness, but these constructs are not germane to the discussion.
There are millions of blogs and websites online that are devoted to making money. There are also websites and blogs that are not trying to make money online. You can call them Internet Marketers if you want, but they are all trying to satisfy some kind of demand, either self-imposed or not.
To vilify marketers of any variety is as stupid as denying the essential efforts you go through to insure your own existence. Every single person online can choose their direction and market themselves according to their needs.
Some bloggers just want to be socially popular and don’t care about money. That’s their marketing strategy! Some people are motivated by making large amounts of money and are trying to find ways to fill that need. They are both marketers and they are both marketing.
Complaining about how an individual monetizes their site is just sour grapes and if a person finds it that disturbing, they should just move on to something else without leaving behind their venom. However, everyone is entitled to their opinion, and making it known is also marketing.
The Internet is the great leveler in my opinion. Almost anyone can be part of it. No longer is it just the rich, wealthy, or well-connected that can have their views and/or endeavors widely distributed in the public domain, anyone can. This is truly profound and unique in the history of the world. But make no mistake about it, in one way or another it is all Marketing and because it exists on the web, it’s Internet Marketing.
Stay Tuned
Jim
