Marketing is a force for good in the world – my marketing manifesto

I believe marketing is a force for good in the world.

Marketing as a discipline has a pretty bad PR problem, though. People love to hate marketers.

And it’s completely understandable. Years and years of bad marketing have convinced people that marketers are just out to raid their pockets.

That’s not necessarily the case.

Marketing connects you to things that make your life better.

Essentially, marketers help you solve problems and meet needs.

Marketers dream up products and services and determine what price the market will support. Marketers get solutions in front of you when you are trying to solve problems or find joy. And the branding side of marketing ties products to companies so they can be held liable for damages if anything goes wrong.

But there is a lot of very bad marketing out there.

Poorly targeted, interruptive ads remain exquisitely painful, especially on the internet. On the flip side of that, hyper-targeted ads based on deep data make some people even more uncomfortable.

So naturally people judge all of marketing by the worst of its practitioners, even though they may not perceive the positive influence marketing has on their lives, on companies and on the market.

But here is the thing.

If we commit to doing good marketing, we have a chance to repair marketing’s reputation.

With that in mind, I’d like to share with you my vision for developing truly good marketing programs that achieve results.

This is my marketing manifesto.

• Marketing is a force for good in the world.
• Good marketing puts the customer and audiences first.
• Good marketing honors the public’s trust.
• Silos equal death for good marketing. Integration is life.
• Too many cooks in the kitchen kill good marketing.
• Too many chefs but not enough cooks in the kitchen kill good marketing.
• Good marketing links every single tactic to a specific goal and strategy.
• Good marketing is highly targeted.
• Good marketing communications are based in action.
• Good marketing takes advantage of primary research at all levels.
• There is no boring in B2B.

If marketers adapt these concepts, we have a chance to build a better relationship with the general public that will result in increased trust in our messages, and more success for the companies we represent.