Know-How Exchange : Strategy

I would have to say a combination of all.

Thanks!

Every art form is a combination of talent, skills and luck. Talent is as important in marketing as it is in painting..

But talent without skills will whither. So it''s important to learn and hone basic skills like crafting an attention-getting press release, putting together a response-generating direct mail project and measuring web site success. There are good marketing processes and best practices and knowing and following these are part of a good skill set.

And then, of course it''s really important to be lucky. Having a good product, a growing marketplace, and a clear differentiator for positioning is lucky. Having a reasonable budget is also *very* lucky!

No discipline can work without some basic restrictions and since it involves people also hence it is required to tackle them carefully. In my view there is nothing "best practices" as otherwise everybody would have followed it and applied it and got the success but since it is not like that hence it is a complicate process where the involvement at 360 degree is needed and that certainly is an art.
Atlast it is a process where relationship matters a lot and that too with the customers.

A highly competitive area where the strategic moves are as important and predicted as eating food when you are hungry. A strategically important issue may grab the attention but it is not necessary that it gets the immidiate response, the same is the case with the market where it needs various aspects to be considered and the customer remains the focal point whereas the other important issues surrounds it.

Marketing IS Business, and therefore shares much in common with all business functions.

Marketing is the management process that ensures that customer needs and satisfied, AND you make a profit on the interaction.

In my experience:

Marketing is thought of as an art 99% of the time.

Good marketing is a science like any other business function. For some reason we have gotten away with treating it as an Art (read no real measurement of results, and no clear, documented processes). Can you imagine trying to run a manufacturing plant without processes and measurements? Why should marketing be any different. Calling it "creative" is a crutch that people use to avoid being accoutable for measurable results.

A piece of the Advertisng puzzle is art. I agree with Cortez''s example above regarding Absolute Vodka. The rest of advertising should be considered all science. Measure, analyze, revise, measure again.

Freddie,

I see we are of one mind. I agree that there is no widely accepted "best practice", I do believe it is possible to create one though. It is just too early in the adoption of marketing as a science to have one established. I believe that in the next 5 years we will see a strong shift toward documented and accepted mareketing best practices; a trend that is being led by small, independent, online marketing entrepreneurs.

Within this close-knit group of direct marketers testing is the norm and what works for one company can easily be applied to another company with a totally different product with profitable results.

Doug Hudiburg
https://www.dailymarketingace.com