By Tim Walker

What is marketing?

Have you ever tried to explain what it is you do and fumbled with the answer?   Explaining what marketing is to my father has proven a significant challenge. He grew up in a time when there was just “Sales”. I often tried to use the “Mr. Spock” quote, “The good of the many out ways the needs of the few, or the one.” The idea that Sales serves the one, Marketing serves the many. In a business-to-clinician (B2C) setting, sales and marketing are connected at a level that requires significant two-way communication. An interdependent relationship, neither can succeed without the other. Neither is first nor more important. Both are critical elements in the strategic marketing flow.

Strategic marketing flow

 Marketing defined

For me, marketing is the ethical application of applied psychology, with the intent of changing a targeted group of humans behaviors. In our case, delivering a message in the “language” of the user that will motivate them to modify their clinical practice, product choice or perception about their definition of value.

When I use the word “language” above, I don’t simply mean the words, or even the media, that they are delivered with. I mean the application of a deep understanding, at an emotional level, of the target audience. That you thoroughly understand what makes the target audience, mad, sad, glad, fearful, hopeful and envious. Understanding the full gambit of emotions that your target audience experiences in their practice and letting that come through in your messaging will help you connect with them, making your messaging all that much more persuasive.

 “Experience is what you get, right after you need it most.”

Make it a great day,

Tim Walker

Tim Walker is the Principal consultant for The Experia Group. A small consulting firm that specializes in providing experience and expertise during critical device commercialization phases to increase the probability of success. www.theexperiagroup.com.