You Never Know When You Are Marketing

The other day as I glanced out the window of the two-storey building I was in, I noticed a standard white work van drive around to the loading docks of a well-known big-box store here in town. I looked closer and saw the logo identity of a local service company whom I had never previously dealt with but recognized. Immediately, I was impressed that this local company had gained the business of this large store.

Then it clicked, that was marketing.

As simple and seemingly insignificant event as this was, it happens in many forms, hundreds maybe even thousands of times each and every day. Unintentionally, this company had gained recognition and respect with me. It may never amount to anything, but the frequency of these interactions both positive or negative happen every day.

As business owners, we often think marketing is that advertisement we took out at the local hockey rink, the stamp card you and Julia-Louis Dreyfus have worked so hard at filling, that blog you write every month or my personal favourite; the tradeshow pen. The truth is, marketing is that and so much more.

• Every time you answer a phone call, it's marketing.
• Emails you send, every hello and goodbye, the impression a potential customer gets when they walk through your front door is marketing.
• The quick glance while driving past your real estate sign.
• The app icon on your smartphone.
• Your website that has changed since your customer's last visit.
• The presentation of your quote and the delivery of your invoice.
• A gift card that is more than just paper.
• The handwritten thank you card you mailed to a new client.
• Twitter feeds, Facebook posts and Instagram snapshots.
• And finally, the customer being able to tell what colour your desk is (I may or may not have been personally guilty of this).

If you have a marketing department, please don't think they are the only people responsible for marketing your company. The fact is, to varying degrees, every department is marketing for you.

Marketing is not what we think about our product, nor what we expect our customers to think. It is truly the full experience a customer has with a company. From first impressions to web presence, personal interactions, branding & identity, advertising, storefront, social media, packaging and photography. It comes in so many forms and often when we are turned the other way.

I'm pretty sure, the driver of the white work van had no idea he was marketing while circling around to the rear of the building. He clearly was and likely in one way or another, you may be marketing right now as well.

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