A New Perspective on Marketing

What management guru Peter Drucker said over forty years ago is coming true in spades. And business has no idea how to cope or manage this issue. What did Drucker say? "Business has two - and only two - primary functions; marketing and innovation." If a company is not marketing, it is not a business, it is a charitable organization. Yet in top management surveys the primary concerns of a CEO are finance, sales, production, management and people. Marketing doesn't even get mentioned. But "marketing" is everything a company does.

With the evolution of the Web to becoming the newest Utility...the Fourth Utility or the Information Utility, it has spurred the concept of marketing into whole new realms. The fundamental shift of business is not "new rules" that the pundits write about but no one can quite define, it's not about a "paradigm shift" either. It's an age old rule of business and first clearly defined over 40 years ago - it's the arrival of what it means for a business to be truly "marketing" itself.

The Web and the technologies and devices that access the Web, mean anyone, almost anywhere at any time, can interact with a "business". They can conduct a "financial transaction" or a "knowledge transaction" with a business. The way the business responds to and engages with a person is how they are "marketing." When a company has a Website and starts engaging with the Web, it then is enabling itself to market to any audience that may take an interest in it. This includes the little shoe repair store on the corner that can use a microblogging or SMS service to notify a customer when their shoes have been re-soled.

Every single business conducts some form of Knowledge or Financial transaction. Every time a business extends itself and communicates with an audience, a transaction is taking place. The inherent value of a Knowledge Transaction is "time" and the inherent value of a Financial Transaction is "monetary." Both of these have inherent values, both can be measured and both contribute the overall worth of the organization.

By understanding that "Knowledge Transactions" bring value, by user participation or by a productivity (work) then a business can fully be "marketing" itself using the Web and communication technologies. Laptops, DVD's, mobile phones, BlackBerries, iPhones...they are all just "containers" that enable either Knowledge or Financial Transactions and therefore are marketing channels (as already recognized)...but businesses can now be truly marketing in all aspects of the definition of marketing an organization.