Page 15 - Duct Tape Marketing

Introduction

What Exactly Is Marketing?

In the first edition of Duct Tape Marketing, I revealed a definition of
marketing that I had developed through years of working with small
business owners and as a response to the textbook definitions that
meant so little in the real world. I’m happy to report that my real-world
definition of marketing seems to get more relevant with each passing
year and each evolution of new marketing tools and techniques.

My definition of marketing is: “getting someone who has a need, to
know, like, and trust you.” That’s it! It is the work we must embody on
the path to turning that know, like, and trust into try, buy, repeat, and
refer. This work, as you may have surmised by now, is done by installing
a system and systems-thinking mind-set to run your entire marketing
universe.

The elements of the original Duct Tape Marketing system, an
approach that has revolutionized the way tens of thousands of mar-
keters now view their marketing, are still intact, although reshaped
and reemphasized in line with the vast changes presented by the Web,
technology, and the adoption of social media behavior. One thing
that you won’t find, however, is a special section on social media—so
popular in current marketing books—as my belief is that these ele-
ments now pervade every other aspect of business and marketing and
simply belong in the conversation about every marketing strategy and
tactic where appropriate.

The Duct Tape Marketing System

Yes, marketing is a system. While this may be hard for some business
owners to come to grips with—leaning instead toward the “marketing
is a strange form of creative voodoo” thinking—marketing is not only
a system; it may be the most important system in any business.

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