sorry—moved continents in-between posting. the issue in tech companies is that everyone thinks they can do marketing so the marketing dept. is often maligned. our skins are only so thick.

According to this definition of marketing, I’m left wondering what is NOT marketing?My biggest takeaway from this discussion thread is a reminder that vague and over-loaded words like “marketing” often lead to needless confusion and debate. So much so that it’s not clear to me what this community really agrees on versus what they really disagree about.I certainly don’t think that product design/definition or profiling target users is a “marketing” activity. I don’t even normally consider target market research/definition or customer development to be “marketing” activities. When someone says “marketing” I think of OUTBOUND activities taken to inform/influence (potential) customers and influencers about your product and brand and incent them to take an action that will benefit you.The viral hooks that are so important to launching products/companies today are really just a reflection of how the best products and ideas have always spread, we can just accelerate the process with technology and really frickin’ big social graphs. No magic here. So, if we can get the word out for free, why shouldn’t we rather than paying someone a lot to do so?Every company should definitely give a lot of thought to what kind of DNA they should have. I agree that consumer web/mobile companies benefit from having social marketing DNA in the founding team.

Yes it is correct that Marketing /= Advertising, and I agree that Fred would have been better served to have used advertising. But I think the deeper question is how do you get your story out at different stages of the product cycle? If we overlay Geoffrey Moore’s concept of ‘cross the chasm’ – does anyone still subscribe to that idea? – my take is that Fred is cautioning not to use tactics in the early stages of a product life cycle that are more appropriate for late stage products.

what do you expect from an engineer who never took a writing class?

Fred, you are so right, as a boutique guy here in NYC, this is something I continually struggle with, how do I grow without giving up the personalized care and bespoke-quality of strategy, training and implementation that I offer my clients. The answer is you can’t grow continually and have it be sustainable.So the other option is to just be happy with what you have, learn more, attract the clients you want and that make you happy, and try to make the money that will please you but that may never make me a wealthy individual.Or, as I am now finding out, as someone who has spent a few years servicing and marketing the ideas and products of other people and brands, every once in awhile I might have an idea of my own that I now have the ability to ideate, plan for, design, develop and launch.Who knows, maybe one of those side projects will be my way out of the upper middle class. poor me!Zac

Coincidentally, we’re launching a business to address this exact problem–a resource for high-potential businesses to access the very best marketing skills (the kind only the very largest companies can ever touch within the consolidated agency conglomerates). The business is targeted at PE-backed (including VC) businesses who tend to be sophisticated owners capable of distinguishing great from mediocre.The best people are rarely contained within the Big Four conglomerates (WPP, Publicis, Omnicom, and Interpublic); rather, they are freelancers looking avoid the bureaucratic hell of those conglomerates to work with other smart people on cool businesses. If you’re Coca Cola, McDonald’s, Procter & Gamble, and the like, you’re well served. If not, good luck to you. Is there any better evidence of this than Groupon’s Super Bowl commercial? Crispin Porter has large clients like Microsoft to tend to. If you’re a huge fixed cost agency, you have no choice but to focus on the largest billable clients.