WHAT IS MARKETING?

Jay Conrad Levinson, author of Mastering Guerrilla Marketing, adds
that not only is marketing not sales, it is not a lot of other things.

• Marketing is not advertising. Don’t think for a second that because you’re advertising, you’re marketing. There are more than one hundred weapons of marketing. Advertising is one of them. But there are ninetynine others. If you are advertising, you are simply advertising—you are
  doing only 1 percent of what you can do.
• Marketing is not direct mail. Some companies think they can get all
  the business they need with direct mail. Mail order firms may be right
  about this. But most businesses need a plethora of other marketing
  weapons to support direct mail, to make direct mail succeed.
• Marketing is not telemarketing. For business-to-business marketing,
  few weapons succeed as well as telemarketing—with scripts.You can dramatically
  improve your telemarketing response by augmenting it with advertising—
  yes, advertising—and direct mail—yes, direct mail. Marketing is
  not telemarketing alone.
• Marketing is not brochures. Many companies rush to produce a
  brochure about the benefits they offer, then pat themselves on the back
  for creating a quality brochure. Is that brochure really all there is to marketing?
  It’s an important aspect of your plan when mixed with ten or fifteen
  other important parts—but all by itself? Forget it.
• Marketing does not mean advertising only in the Yellow Pages.
  Most, and I do mean most, companies in the U.S. run a Yellow Pages ad
  and figure that it takes care of their marketing.Advertising in the Yellow
  Pages only is sufficient for 5 percent of all businesses. For the other 95
  percent, it’s a disaster in the form of marketing ignorance. Use a Yellow
  Pages ad as part of your arsenal—but only as part.
• Marketing is not show business. There’s no business like show business,
  and that includes marketing. Think of marketing as sell business, as
  create-a-desire business, as motivation business. [Marketers] aren’t in the
  entertainment business—marketing is not meant to entertain.
• Marketing is not a stage for humor. If you use humor in your marketing,
  people will recall your funny joke, but not your compelling offer. If
  you use humor, your campaign will be funny the first and maybe the second
  time. After that, the humor will be grating and will hinder the very
  concept that makes marketing successful—repetition.
• Marketing is not an invitation to be clever.You don’t want potential
  customers to remember the cleverness of your marketing—it’s your
  offer they should remember. Cleverness is a marketing vampire, sucking
  attention away from your offer.
• Marketing is not a miracle worker. More money has been wasted
  because marketers expected miracles than because of any other miscon-
  ception. Expect miracles, get ulcers. Marketing is the best investment in
  America if you do it right, and doing it right requires planning and patience.

and now what do u think bout marketing itself???