Will Social Media Help Marketing Find It's Way Back Home?
08/03/2009
Don Schultz's articles in the AMA Marketing Management are always thought provoking. This month was no exception.
Product. Price. Place. Promotion. The Marketing Four Ps: The nursery rhyme of most marketing 101 courses. The foundation of so many strategic plans.
- The only problem is that the four Ps totally ignores customers. The concept assumes the marketer controls the system. Customers and consumers are simply pawns in the gigantic marketing system that the "marketing masters of the universe" have devised and now control. - Professor Schultz
On the other side of the equation is Peter Drucker's view of marketing and business.
- We need to get back to what marketing was suppose to do in the beginning: Determine customer needs and wants, and fulfill them efficiently for Both sides.We need to revisit what Peter Drucker was saying in the 1950s: The only purpose of a company is to create and maintain customers. - Professor Schultz (Note: caps on the word Both are mine)
Could it be that social media will lead us back to our roots? To remembering that the customer experience is the heart of what marketing is all about? To dropping the facade of control? Who really believed that one? To understanding that strategy and customer relationships are not mutally exclusive? To creating Corner Grocery Store Relationships?