How to understand the business meaning of marketing and get rid of marketers

Marketers are the talk of the Russian IT sector. Fussy, stupid girls, forever on nerves and with complaints, never fulfill their obligations, constantly try to inflate a client and just ask for a budget for every sneeze. Yes?

Maybe yes, but something is wrong here. Let's try to think slowly in terms of business.

The meaning of life marketer

Marketers exist.

That means there is a reason. And since they exist in business reality, this is also the cause of a business nature.
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Stand still. Do not rush to include pretentious monologues about working with the market, communication channels, working with a simple-Lord-brand and other dregs. With this we are all fed up. And this is not a business language.

Maybe you think that business language is a language of profit? Well ... almost, yes. In any case, the idea of ​​“Marketers increase profits because ...” is popular among the masses. We are here with you - the mass is narrow, we also ate such chatter, we will not even try.

So. Rested against the wall. If not about the channels and not about the profit, then about what? How to explain what marketers do and why?

Let's put together some facts.

1. Marketers exist.
2. Marketers are paid money.
3. No one except marketers, it is not clear why they are needed.
4. The conventional wording (for example, “about profit”, and others) is not convincing.

There is a conflict of reality with our view of it. Usually this means that you need to change the presentation (although sometimes the temptation to strangle a couple of particularly annoying marketers is very large, yes).

Let's try to change. With restriction: in the selfish interests.

Let's start with the key: the wording is not convincing - for whom? Obviously, for business they are precise enough to pay for marketing activities. Spit, stutter, but generally pay.

That is, marketing in general is useful from the point of view of the average businessman in a vacuum. And this is possible only in one case - if the activity of a marketer helps an entrepreneur to solve his main task.

Well, someone has happily blurted out about the fact that "the main task of a businessman is to earn money," yes? Oh, if everything was so simple.

Without going far into the theory, we’ll further take for granted that money for an entrepreneur is an indicator, environment, stimulus, lubricant, boundary condition, reporting form, pleasant bonus, puser, anything, but not the main task. In any case, for an entrepreneur who creates something, and not just exploits resources ...

Stop. That's the key word. Hello to Adam Smith, Karl Marx and other cute bunnies - they all said a long time ago, only we did not learn to listen.

The entrepreneur exploits resources. Any resources. That's what will reach - and exploits such. The most popular resources — labor, capital, information, land — are well known to everyone.

But the thing is that the set of resources that the entrepreneur can exploit is unchanged only for short periods of time. And these gaps are all shortened and shortened. Today was an administrative resource - no tomorrow. Today there were cheap loans - tomorrow, goodbye. Today it was possible to hire a crowd of Hindu outsourcers - they ended tomorrow. Today is one, tomorrow is another.

That is, if earlier the task of a businessman was precisely exploitation (podgreb under him and squeezing all the juice), but now the case is actively shifting towards the search for resources.
After all, only from a resource (his, someone else’s, nobody’s, stolen, accidentally found) an entrepreneur can build cars for money-making.

What to squeeze money from? Where to find a new Klondike, which none of the competitors have not touched? What actions to take to wash more gold?

The struggle for valuable employees, mimicry for someone else’s brand, cloning of foreign businesses, searching for start-up ideas, crowdfunding and crowdsourcing are all obvious attempts to reach out to new and new oil wells.

Hey, you have not forgotten that we are talking about marketing and marketing are talking? Now everything will be clarified, be patient.

Exploitation of man by man

Let us return to the facts and interpret them a little. On the one hand, we see people receiving money for some reason. On the other hand, people who are ready to dig the earth with their bare hands in search of new resources for the construction of business machines.

Is it possible to somehow acquaint them with each other somehow? After all, it is easy to assume that if an entrepreneur invests in something with an incomprehensible result (and he is incomprehensible, do not lie to himself), then he hopes to hit the bank. What kind of jackpot already discussed above.

Let's return to the picture of the world of the marketer. If you overcome the natural disgust and look at their daily work, it turns out interesting details.

This work looks, if very simplified (and not about all), something like this.

First, the marketer makes endless lists. Customers, journalists, contractors, conferences, publications, competitors, keywords, presentations, and so on. Very different, but - lists.

And then he begins to exploit these lists. Comes up (often from the ceiling) some content and zafigachivaet in the newsletter. Or collects already published articles in the press and makes the brain to everyone who can contribute to their layout on the site. Or something else that pushes powerful.

In short, he juggles his list inventory. Such is the daily work. With budgeting plans, with reports, with a large number of discussions, approvals, clarifications - but the mechanics are simple: compiled a list - you squeeze the benefits out of it.

And mostly marketers are precisely this juggling and trained (they will say something different, often delusional, hysterical, but you just don’t believe it). Well, normal skill, every bit in line, let's apply in the household.

Let's say - just for a moment, let's say - that the marketer came to the entrepreneur and said to him: dude, I can squeeze the benefits out of the resource that you have been hanging around doing. That's just just under your feet lying. And nobody even pays attention to it. And I know about this gold. I know how and from what to get it. I know how to apply it for your benefit. I can stay up right now for a salary and, if necessary, some budgets.

Suppose also that the entrepreneur is small-medium. That is, it is very focused on finding resources (the large ones have snapped up already, you have to dodge). Always in time trouble. Dies under the flow of tasks that require a decision. It does not like when something useful lies idle. And it's not that it is too well-educated in management issues.

Attention, a question: the entrepreneur is seized by the offer of the marketing specialist? With a high probability, yes. And for good reason.

1. The notorious belief in a new free resource. Well, you get it already.
2. Relatively cheap (s / n plus very small forced expenses) investment, which is immediately ready to bring benefits.
3. There is no need to pay too much attention to the issue (of which there is a shortage) - the marketer takes everything as it should, without coordinating every sneeze.

That is a complete analogy with such, for example, history. A farmer comes to the lord and says: you have a river flowing idle here, let's at least build a mill - and I will be engaged and you will benefit.

The Lord may, of course, fall under the tail, but in general he is inclined to agree. Especially if you want to eat, and all things - give the go-ahead.

So is our entrepreneur. The question that worries him at this moment is only one: what kind of river, why do not I know?

Then begins part, which is specific not only for the IT-market, but is very characteristic of modern commerce as a whole.

The fact is that in the course of the development of the company, it accumulates what is commonly called expertise. Knowledge of specialists, experience in conducting projects, archive of old materials, useful acquaintances on the market and in the media, but still the same customer base. However, it accumulates in a very medieval format: most of them are oral legends and walking sages in marasmus, the rest of the trifles are carelessly written here and there and gathering dust in the basements of Dropbox.

Frankly, Vidocq is usually not marketable. Anyone who wanted to write a couple of articles about their miracle office, or, say, implement a wiki as a knowledge base, faced the problem. Efforts require truly heroic, but to sense - almost zero, after a month it still goes into the sand.

So, to benefit from the examination - a separate work. Hellish. It is impossible to do it “on surrender”, and between times - attention is only the way it is eaten. There is also little use of random raids - the field must be tilled systematically.

And here is a miracle specialist who says that this is exactly what he can do: get to the bottom of the expertise spread out in the space and use it as a hidden resource for the benefit of the company. Yes, yes, this is just our hero-marketer, you understood correctly.

True, the hero taldychit something about the channels, about budgets and other vague little things tactical plan. He does not see the strategy at all, he does not perceive gold mines as something important and real. Well, that's good: strategy is the business of a businessman after all.

So it appears in the company marketer. The man who is being used in the dark. That is, they do not say why it is needed. But exploit - be healthy.

Entrepreneurs, of course, never in your life will clearly articulate such a construction. Firstly, because they themselves are acting more intuitively than consciously. Secondly, who rents fish places. Thirdly, marketers (blacks on the plantation) are very beneficial to keep in the dark.

But. Do not articulate - only those who came and uses. And people like you and me, who come from the question "Why are marketers needed?", Would only be happy to have a ready-made answer. Which can be directly taken like this and applied on the farm.

Well, here you are, the answer. Once again briefly: a marketer is a person who exploits the expertise of a company.
How exactly does he do it? Well, here begins a separate long conversation about targets, tools and all that. But now we will not lead him. Why? Yes, because it is already the responsibility of the marketer. How can, and does, in short. You can go into details, but you must first decide why.

However, we list the obvious. So what does the marketer do?

1. Collects, organizes and updates the expertise and knowledge of all kinds. In other words, the ephemeral resource materializes, which in fact increases the value of the company and enhances its market opportunities even by itself, simply being separated from the carriers of secret knowledge and recorded in files and papers.
2. Takes responsibility for the business exploitation of accumulated wealth. That is, it organizes, plans, does a lot of things with its hands, reports on processes and demonstrates results.

Everything. Such is the internal gold miner. Which, by the way, is not something that matters to the activities of the rest of the firm - but this is a very mediated matter: as a businessman, he is interested in the result, but only from the point of view of building up corporate expertise.

Robots will replace idiots

And now attention, the question is: do you know a lot of marketers who at least understand the formulation of the problem in such a formulation? They, of course, meet, but more and more in director and CEO positions. But we need something - on the linear!

Now the exploitation of expertise in small and medium-sized businesses is a headache for everyone little by little, but mostly the general director or director of development. Not that they are happy with this unexpected load, but there is no one to delegate it.

It is possible to give back to an external contractor, but still it is difficult and expensive. The scale of business does not allow.

In short, do it yourself. Hence the problem. We list the main ones.

1. Unsystematic marketing activities. Article - and the year of silence. Ten entries in the blog - and a break for a month.
2. Low density of these activities. And it would be possible to make reports at conferences once a quarter, but organizing a speech is a whole business, but there is no strength for it.
3. The experience gained in the fog. Who among us has not suffered over cases that for some reason is always so difficult to write when the project is already closed, and a new customer is pounding on the door with his feet.
4. One-time content. Gigantic efforts to hold the conference - and no one got confused by the video recording. And the audience (potentially huge) instantly narrowed down to a small number of people present.
5. Unsystematic sales. Key contacts and details of transactions - again in the head of the main thing, there is no time and effort to take out, somehow it lives so slowly, but the whole business depends on the memory of a single person.
6. Low quality of communications with the market. More precisely, the quality tied to a specific person. Not scalable, not reproducible, not standardized-template.

Well it is, the most obvious and most severe troubles. There are more. Lot. And we already understood that a lively marketer who can save in such a situation is a rare bird.

What, have we really come to the desired conclusion - “Kill the marketer”? No, this is not a solution, the dead are even less confused (but there is no harm, however).

Let's act differently. So, as from time immemorial, was led in the IT-environment. Namely: if there are no people, we will replace them with cars. We automate the activities of a marketer in the small business.

Crowds of start-ups and normal businesses in this direction are already joking: they make all sorts of monitoring systems for social networks, auto-postings, sending out press releases, spamming tools, you know the whole zoo.

But such products close only the problems of the instrumental level: how to replace the already existing performing activity with a miracle robot. The matter is simple, but on the scale of a small business it is almost meaningless: a person with competencies will still have to manage robots. And competence is just not enough.

Maybe then replace the robot manager himself?

That is, in order for some kind of miracle system to solve both tasks of a marketer: accumulate expertise and exploit it. Or at least very seriously helping people to do both.

Boldly, but possible.

Especially if - temporarily - to score on the accumulation and focus only on the operation.

Remember, we somewhere above the text realized that marketers, albeit unknowingly, in the operation hand stuffed? Or maybe they then have some kind of tool that can be made to work without a person?

Yes, there is such a tool. You will laugh, but it is called a media plan. The primitive thing: a sign that says what, where and with what frequency to write, report and broadcast live. And what metrics to measure at the output.

Usually media plan is prepared individually for each company. And after all the discussions, approvals, someone unfortunate (the first letter "M") begins to act with maniacal tediousness according to this plan. Monotonous work, 95% dependent on the discipline and speed of printing.

But why make up individually? Why all the power of marketing science lean on a small desk of 10-15 people? The counter will die of the greatness of this media plan. Do not.

Let media plans for small businesses be typical? Well, with minor adjustments depending on the nuances of the company's life.

Then the devil-machine (she’s an automarketer) does the following.

Diagnoses a business: asks questions to the owner and adjusts the media plan depending on the answers and the industry.

Disciplined kicks, interrogates the person in charge - receives data for publication. At that moment, and that format, which are fixed in the plan.

Publishes what you need. Where necessary. Then, when necessary. Of course, not herself - most likely, gives the order to external systems.

Monitors key activity indicators.

It shows beautiful reports on the effectiveness of all this fuss.

Can? They say you can. Need to? And FIG know, maybe it should.

This article is for discussion of the hypothesis. Now the strong in spirit can speak at least about whether the construct is understandable to them, whether it is close to their needs and aspirations and whether they are ready to pay for it.