What is marketing?
What is marketing? That is a BIG question. Chances are, when you ask people, you will get a variety of answers.
Why is marketing misunderstood?
Understanding marketing can be hard. After all, I think most of us can understand what we see. And the fact is a good portion of our marketing work is not seen.
A good marketing team will spend so much time, strategy and focus on doing things their colleagues and executive team may not see…but it is all contributing to the success. That’s why I like to think of marketing as a tree.
How is marketing a tree?
What people see is the beauty of the tree above ground. The trunk, branches, foliage, fruit, leaves, etc. It gives something to its community: oxygen, beauty, shade, play, wildlife housing, etc. But beneath the ground, as we all know, are the roots. Some deep, some new. Some easily formed, some traversing harder to navigate soil or rocks in order to take root and help the tree grow.
The above ground tree that people see represents marketing work that is visible. The campaigns, the activations, the conversions, etc.
The root system of the tree represents all the work that is invisible. This is the behind-the-scenes work. The testing, the analytics, the SEO, funnel curation, the martech enhancements, the editorial calendar planning, the work that did not pass stage gates and more. The roots are what allow the tree to grow, flourish, scale, sustain. It’s the root system that matters most. The roots are your long-term strategies to ensure the tree grows and delivers its shorter-term objectives, another branch, more leaves, etc.
Show the whole marketing tree
I encourage marketers to make the invisible work more visible. This could look like many different things, depending on what you have available to you:
- End of year report: Share with your partners, leadership and executive team an end of year report. Showcase the above and below ground work. Help them see the whole tree works together to support the business objectives.
- Attach your root work to above ground outcomes and corporate strategies: Show how the invisible work impacts the visible work. This helps everyone see the role of marketing is both in the fun, exciting work, as well as the strategy work it takes to get there.
- Did your social grow? Great, see if you can link that growth to sales.
- How is your SEO doing? If it’s helping you get more people at the Top of the Funnel? Share that information. Showcase X% came into the funnel from the paid work, and X% from organic SEO work. Now your leadership can see it didn’t just magically happen, you had a role in making it all happen.
- Did you invest in a new martech system that helped you do more, go faster, analyze better, etc.? Don’t just implement, implement and share. Help everyone see the value.
- Dashboard KPIs: Build a dashboard and attach all your work – visible and invisible – to it. Then, reference and show that dashboard often in meetings. Share the dashboard results when making recommendations so all can see how you use the data at your fingertips to inform your strategies.
Nurture the marketing tree
Trees play an important role in our ecosystem. Just like marketing plays an important role in our businesses. As marketers, let’s nurture the whole tree: roots and branches and let’s do that to drive positive impacts for our customers and our business.
