This article starts at zero and explains marketing from a fundamental level. Some people would call this “reasoning by first principles”.
I hope this approach gives us all a deeper understanding of the subject. Of the dynamics. Of how to reflect on new options and decide on a specific path.
So let’s start with the refreshingly simple definition from Wikipedia and unpack that sentence:
“[Marketing] is the business process of creating relationships with (...) customers.”
A “business process” is just something people do in a company. And “creating relationships with customers” means to go from “someone doesn’t know your company” to “they buy from you”. Like in a personal relationship, this means being genuinely interested in the other person and over time giving them more and more reasons to trust you.
Sounds easy. But if it was that easy, I wouldn't be here writing this and you wouldn't read it.
How do companies find their customers? Where do you start if you have something to sell but no one to sell it to?
Imagine a simple world. On the one side there is you. You want to sell a product or service. On the other side there's the rest of the world—potentially billions of people. Hopefully some of them have a need that your product fulfills. But if these people don’t learn about what you're offering, they will never buy anything from you—no matter how great it is.
This is the classic “build it and they will come” misery. Many people who know how to create stuff, are in this place. For makers/developers/engineers/creators it’s relatively easy to build a product, but it’s hard to find the people who actually need it. If you start with no connections, you can’t even be sure if there are any customers out there. That sucks.
The goal of marketing is to make connections to the people who need your product. In an ideal world you could reach every single person who has the problem you’re solving.
Unfortunately, the real world is not ideal. Not everybody is always looking for solutions or is even aware of their problems.
For thousands of years humanity has come together at markets to find relief for their problems. Need rye? Come to the grain market in the city on market day. Want to sell hay? You better be at the market where everybody is going to buy hay.
In many European cities streets are still named after the markets that took place at the exact location in the Middle Ages. For example in the old city of Vienna in Austria there are streets called meat market, hay market, new market, farmer’s market, baker street, grain market, high market, coal market, milk street, run street (where you would test horses from the nearby horse market), salt street, venison market.
Of course a concept as important as marketplaces has transitioned to the digital space. People now visit their favorite auction website, an app store or one of the websites that sell everything.
That's great news! Here's how you'll connect to your new customers in a marketplace:
If people go to a marketplace to look for a solution and you are at the marketplace and you are visible enough, you will be connected to these people. If they trust you enough, they will buy from your. Same principle as a thousand years ago.
What if there is no marketplace? In the next article I’ll look at other spaces where people hang out and at the gatekeepers who guard those groups. Then I'll explore how to get past the gatekeepers. Read the next article now.
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