I am a marketing major. Because I am creative, because I love to work with people to accomplish one common goal, because I like working with different media platforms, because I enjoy better learning how to communicate ideas to others, because I like to dream and think and encourage....marketing seemed like a good fit, so I ran with it.
I'll describe marketing to you in a nutshell. Marketing is a creative platform that allows your to work interactively and with the community. It allows you to be creative in your role and help contribute to a company's success by utilizing it. You get to collaborate and communicate and connect. Your ideas get brought to life. Your job is to figure out a concept, and then figure out a way to convey that to people in an effective way. You get to make things happen.
Without good and true communications (often known as marketing), no one would know or see or hear much of what is created in the world.
At first glance, this sounded appealing.
Consumer behavior is usually the root of marketing. Why do people purchase the things they do? What inspires people to purchase things in the way they purchase them? What things can be done to influence consumer purchase behaviors? It is a lot of figuring out people, and how they wire and function and think. These are the type of questions you would think about. Marketing is very much about knowing the consumer, how and why they buy things.
But essentially at the end of the day, marketing is simply this: get people to buy things. Businesses employ marketing materials in the hopes that those materials will convince people to purchase their products, particularly over competitors (soft form of manipulation).
At first glance, this did not sound appealing.
I am a fan of business, more specifically the creative side, but not when it's for the wrong intentions. I am well aware that business is solely run on profit, sales, and revenue, but I am firm believer that it can be much more than that, and should be much more meaningful than that.
Marketing can have a negative connotation, but I think I am determined to change that a little bit. Words, simply put, are powerful. I believe in using your creative ideas and power of words to promote something good, and right, and utilize the power of your impact to reach people in a way of veracity. With advertisements, you contain much influence in how you control how people think and how you want people to be swayed. I believe if our advertisements are grounded on honest principles and standing for things that matter, you can encourage and empower people to care about things that are important, and overall create a concept of change.
Think about it, what if you advertised for something that is impactful and significant? Or presented information in a way that made people think, ponder, and question? Ask yourself, what am I trying to do here? Instead of mindlessly advertising for a product that is worthless or a waste of time and money, or tricking consumers into investing in something meaningless, or solely being blinded by the need for higher profit...I believe we should think about where are intentions are, what are kind of goals we are trying to reach, and the methods of how we are carrying about this.
I am going to revamp the four "P's" of marketing:
1. Product. How might this product help others? What is the need for this? How can we help satisfy this need? Is there a true need for this?
2. Place. How can people access this product? Is it set in a good place that people can access it?
3. Price. Is my price fair and true? Am I overpricing this? Does the price match the value?
4. Promotion. How can I reach my target market in the best way, and where and when can I get this across? What's the best strategy of impacting people?
Marketing might equal manipulating, but it can be so much more than that. It is using your power of influence through articulation and ideas to affect the world for the better. It is enhancing your gifts and talents for good.
There are a lot of ways marketing can be done negatively, but when you love what you are doing with every fiber of your being, whether writing or making or whatever is your passion, marketing can be filled with passion and joy as well.
Words that make me cringe: brand, platform, margins. Words that I love: story, voice, truth.
Marketers are often team players, creatives, dreamers, concept creators, idealists, influencers, communicators, word spreaders. They don't have to be swayers, convincers, tricksters, sneaky-sneak sneakers.
We are writers, creators, builders...not products.
We are makers, not marketers.
