What is Marketing Anyway?

From telegraph.co.uk

Many people overcomplicate marketing. It boils down to one simple thing – education. Think about it, when you’re marketing, you’re just educating your prospects, your clients, and your employees. This is why most marketers are great teachers.

Lets break down each of these audiences that you’re educating, I mean marketing to:

• Prospective Clients – You’re educating your prospects about what you offer and how your work rocks their world. This is your most obvious target audience and the one the executive teams keeps a close watch on most likely. A lot of people do not like the idea of “marketing” or “selling” their services, but if you think of it as educating and you’re not forcing them to buy, then it shouldn’t be painful. I hate making people do things they do not want to do, especially buying something they do not need. Many times, I need to educate prospects why they need help and that there is someone that can help – my team. 
• Current Customers – You’re educating customers about other services, new products & services, and keeping them in the loop so they do not stray to another vendor. This education can be done through newsletters and emails, but many times is with day-to-day interactions with your team. Don’t forget about past clients. In construction, a lot of clients do not have active projects every year, but keeping them in the loop and showcasing your latest work can be the difference between negotiated work and bid work.
• Employees – You’re employees are your biggest tools in educating, for both current and past clients. A bad interaction between your team and a client can flub up all of your hard work as does poor performance. A sloppy construction site and bad performance will deter prospects and current clients from doing work with you. You also need to educate your employees about what the company is working on and can do. I’ve been in conversations at networking events where I’m educating a construction company’s prospect about a service the company offers that the employee does not know about – education FAIL. This too can be done with an email or printed newsletter or even a private Facebook group to keep large companies communicating – think of Facebook as a new intranet bulletin board.

What do you think of my definition of “marketing” as just education? Let me know your thoughts.