So far, most of my posts under the category “Technique” have been about online marketing. Online marketing is hard to escape these days, especially if you are in business. Customers do not have to go online but if they are online they are aware of marketing daily. However, online marketing is secondary to in-person marketing. It always will be so because in-person interactions will always have a more profound impact.
This is especially true for local marketing. We can use the Internet to market offers nationally and even globally. In-person interactions will be fewer under these circumstances. Cost is the reason for this. Few people can afford to fly all over the world and meet people in expensive hotels. The traditional approaches to marketing on this scale such as newspaper or TV advertising, are still very expensive. The Internet has opened up global marketing to many more people. It is cheaper. It is still difficult but certainly possible.
However my focus is on community-based marketing and there are many in-person techniques you can use to build a marketing strategy locally. Mostly these remain unchanged. The Internet can support most of these approaches but they are much as they always were.
Marketing
In this blog, I apply the language of marketing to community development. The way I see it, local businesses need to market to communities, while community organisations need to recognise business as an essential element within their neighbourhoods.
When I write about promoting or campaigning, what I say is just the same. There is, however, one difference between marketing and promoting / campaigning. Marketing aims to make a sale, usually in a business context. It may make sense to keep this distinction. I market when I’m aiming for a sale; I promote or campaign when I seek to do something else. This is fair enough if only because it allows these three words to retain distinct meanings.
Marketing in its narrow meaning has a business context and aims for sales. In its more general sense, marketing means any kind of promotion. Why?
- Whether you are marketing towards a sale, promoting or campaigning, the methods are indistinguishable.
- The marketplace is central to community development and not solely for financial transactions. Fundamentally I want to distinguish between genuine marketplaces, where people have a right to promote whatever they wish (so long as its legal) and the private shopping centre where the campaigner is moved along. The private shopping centre is not a marketplace because it lacks the fundamental right we all have to live our lives in public; they are leisure centres, where the primary leisure pursuit is shopping.
Promoting
In its specific sense, promoting is where you are seeking support for an activity. So, you are organising an event where there is a guest speaker and you want people to attend. A flyer or email to a list informs people of the venue, time and place. You’ll say a little about the speaker and their subject and hope people turn up.
There are many activities that need to be promoted. Here are a few:
- Events
- Recruiting Members
- Sharing information
- Meetings
- Persuading people to take on responsibilities
- Debating, eg through a blog
So, promoting covers a range of recreational and business events, where people might listen to a speaker or debate a current topic. Where there is a charge it is usually understood to cover costs and the event is not a business venture.
Campaigning
Specifically, campaigning is marketing a cause, with social or political change in view. The aim is to (1) change people’s minds about a topic and then (2) to persuade them to take action. So, campaigning will draw attention to a problem, suggest why current solutions are not good enough, promote a particular approach, provide evidence it is right and so ask people to take action. Possible actions might include
- Donate to the cause
- Sign a petition
- Write a letter
- Join a demonstration
- Subscribe to a newsletter
- Join an organisation
There may be a charge for some of these but the main point is the political message; charges cover costs.
Conclusion
Whilst most people agree these are distinct approaches, there is significant overlap of the activities involved. The in-person marketing techniques I will describe in this sequence of posts can equally be used to market, promote or campaign.
Do you agree all these approaches are marketing methods? How do you set about promoting your activities?