What is marketing?
I’m Michael Fulwiler, founder of Fulwiler Media and former head of marketing of The Gottman Institute. Every Tuesday, I’m going to be sharing no-BS marketing tips, insights, and learnings to help you get better at marketing in five minutes or less.
You’re probably thinking, “I’m not a marketer.” I get it. You went to school to do therapy, not marketing. But here’s the thing. Being a therapist is hard. It takes years of education, training, and practice. It’s not for everyone.
Marketing is for everyone. I’m a good example. I didn’t go to school for marketing or even business. In fact, I have no formal training or education in either. I’m completely self-taught and by no means do I claim to be an expert. You should be skeptical of anyone who does.
The word “marketing” can be triggering for a lot of therapists. It feels gross. That’s because there’s a lot of bad marketing (and marketers) out there. Bad marketing is about manipulation.
Good marketing, on the other hand, is about people. As a therapist, it’s literally your job to understand and relate to people, so you probably know more about marketing than you think.
Which brings us to the topic of today’s article: What is marketing? And what’s the difference between marketing, advertising, public relations, and branding?
We’ll dig deeper in the coming weeks and months, but here’s a good visual.
Marketing is how you talk about what you do. The American Marketing Association defines it as “the process of identifying customer needs and determining how best to meet those needs.” It’s about making it easy for your ideal clients to find you.
Marketing is also about more than just getting more clients. With better marketing, you can leverage your expertise to selling products and book paid speaking engagements, which can give you time back.
Seth Godin, one of my favorite marketers, puts it this way:
If you need to persuade someone to take action, you’re doing marketing.
If you’re looking for votes at the city council meeting, or looking for a promotion, you’re marketing.
If you’re writing copy on your website, taking a selfie for your social media profile or trying to talk your way out of a speeding ticket, you’re marketing.
Marketing goes way beyond advertising, email pitches or the way you do pricing. In fact, most of the time, marketing has nothing at all to do with money.
We’re surrounded by people who would like a piece of our attention, a bit of our trust and some of our action. Those people are marketing to us, and it helps to know what they’re doing right (and wrong).
If someone says, “I don’t do marketing,” they probably mean, “I don’t spend money on ads.” Those are very different things.
Our culture is driven, more than ever, by marketers. The links we click on, the shows we watch, the people we vote for–they’re all marketing artifacts. If you don’t like the political situation, you’re commenting on the marketing situation.
As soon as we take responsibility for the marketing we do and the marketing that’s done to us, we have a chance to make things better (by making better things).
By reading this article, you’ve already taken the first (and most difficult) step to becoming a better marketer. Thanks for showing up.