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David Packard, the late CEO of Hewlett-Packard, said: "Marketing is too important to be left only to the marketing department." This statement highlights an important stage in marketing science—the fourth stage: the marketing concept (integrated marketing). To learn and practice marketing, it is necessary to understand the concept and development stages of marketing.
Philip Kotler, the father of marketing, defined marketing as: "Marketing is a social process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating, offering, and freely exchanging products and services of value with others."
Throughout history, humans have continuously discovered the laws of things and summarized them into practice. As Mao Zedong said, "Theory comes from practice and guides practice." Marketing is a practical management science, and it cannot escape the universal laws of development. Kotler categorized the development of marketing into five stages: production concept, product concept, selling concept, marketing concept, and societal marketing concept.
Those who have worked in marketing know that marketing management experts are divided into academic and practical schools. Personally, I lean toward the practical school. Today, practical experts active in major consulting firms and training forums are quite popular. As Deng Xiaoping said, "Development is the absolute principle." What is accepted by the market has universality and research value. No one learns marketing before doing marketing; everyone learns through long-term practice and exploration. As the ancients said, "Man follows the earth, earth follows heaven, heaven follows the Tao, and the Tao follows nature." Mao Zedong put it more clearly: "You can learn warfare only through warfare."
Methods are important Marketing is a practical science, and management is also practice.
There are various methods for learning marketing. Some people, holding great marketing tomes, burst with enthusiasm, wishing to read all famous marketing theories in history. However, if they do not learn properly, besides a rich theoretical foundation, increasing conversation topics and gaining admiration from others, it is of no use. I advise colleagues who want to devote themselves to the marketing industry: if you do not want to be a theoretical researcher, put down that vain heart, learn from the market, learn from the industry, learn from marketers who have come from practice, be brave in practice, and innovate thinking. Marketing has no permanent mindset. As Sun Tzu said, "Those skilled at surprising the enemy are as boundless as heaven and earth, and as inexhaustible as rivers and seas." Of course, I am not advocating the uselessness of reading. Books must be read; through reading, you can enrich theoretical knowledge, form standardized and professional marketing thinking, apply theory and methods to specific work, and seek solutions in books for difficulties encountered and achievements gained in work. Choose one or two professional marketing books; the key is whether you can concentrate and thoroughly comprehend them. As the saying goes, "Once you understand one principle, you understand all principles; expertise lies in specialization."
Case study method The reason why Fortune 500 companies thrive is their continuous progress and keeping pace with the times. Their internal training materials can be considered the essence, as they are the theoretical distillation of management, marketing, human resources, logistics, production, and other disciplines. They are brilliant and easy to understand. Case teaching is vivid and easy to grasp, allowing you to survey market changes from armchair strategies and see through the fog of flowers in exchanges. In daily learning and practice, pay attention to collecting these materials; they can let you experience the ups and downs of the market and the dangers of the business world in real marketing cases, helping you avoid similar situations in future practice. As historians say, "Use history as a mirror." Traveling ten thousand miles is better than reading ten thousand books.
Learn the laws, see the industry from outside In case studies, do not be confined to industry limits. Learn from cases across various industries. The laws of development are consistent. Being proficient in your own profession is a skill; understanding other industries through your own is a capability. Here, I share a case with you:
In the 1930s, Ford Motor Company's cars were very popular, but supply could not meet demand. Young Ford knew the problem was in the production plant, with low efficiency. He tried many methods but could not significantly increase capacity. One day, young Ford visited a slaughterhouse and saw a live pig enter the workshop and come out dismembered. In the slaughtering process, each worker was responsible for only one step, such as electric shock, washing, skinning, or evisceration. This method not only cultivated workers' specialized skills and improved individual efficiency but also made the overall process smooth, greatly increasing labor productivity. Young Ford was greatly inspired and returned to reform the production process. From then on, the epoch-making automobile assembly line was born. Ford's production increased dramatically while costs decreased, laying a solid foundation for Ford to become a giant in the world automobile industry.
In the learning process, we might as well adopt a market-following strategy. In a 100-meter race, following half a step behind, overtaking happens in an instant. The century-long competition between Pepsi and Coca-Cola is a vivid and comprehensive case study. Both are century-old enterprises and beverage giants, but before the 1970s, Pepsi always fell just short of surpassing Coca-Cola, which bothered Pepsi. In the 1960s and 1970s, a new class emerged in the United States—hippies, representatives of decadent youth. Society showed a decadent atmosphere, which needed encouragement from inspirational spirit. Pepsi seized this opportunity, focusing on the younger generation in advertising and corporate direction. In the 1980s, they launched the global slogan "Ask for More"—meaning "endless desire." A series of appeals and market orientation made Pepsi's brand image deeply rooted in people's hearts. Pepsi represented youth, passion, and development, implicitly suggesting that Coca-Cola represented outdatedness, old age, and backwardness. This successful market strategy finally allowed Pepsi to replace Coca-Cola as the world's number one beverage giant in the 1990s, realizing a century-old dream.
The best way to learn is to teach others Mencius said: "Those skilled in governance win the people's wealth; those skilled in teaching win the people's hearts." To give sunshine to others, you must first have infinite sunshine in your heart, but only when the sunshine in your heart is spread on the earth can the fruits be abundant. This requires marketing learners to continuously strengthen their own learning on the one hand, and on the other hand, to share their knowledge and experience with others. In foreign enterprise training, there is a very important method called role-playing, where participants practice and exchange with each other, similar to mock enemy drills in military training. Confucius's view is that teaching and learning promote each other.
The pain of choice As everyone knows, when doing marketing, you need to segment the target market. Similarly, learning marketing requires segmenting learning content. This faces a choice: you cannot have both fish and bear's paw. You need to segment the market according to your specific marketing work, then overview the whole and attack professionally. For example, sales representatives and sales managers both need systematic learning of general marketing theories, but sales managers should focus more on management. While learning marketing, they should also dabble in management, human resources, finance, production, market forecasting, and planning. Sales representatives should dabble in negotiation skills, psychology, and pay attention to absorbing other knowledge. If you try to grasp everything, you will only drown in the vast ocean of learning. Stephen Covey, in "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People," has a very important habit called "Put First Things First." Let us encourage each other with this!
The brave warrior The brave warrior here does not advocate being a brave warrior, but emphasizes execution. An important trait of marketers is action and execution. The light of thought needs action to perfect and achieve results. Always keep yourself in action. Martial arts emphasize "mind arrives, eyes arrive, hands arrive," meaning the unity of mind and eyes, and hands and eyes reaching the sky.
Rest is relative, movement is eternal. Change leads to understanding, and understanding leads to endurance. Marketing is constantly developing, and marketers are changing with each passing day. Let us together be eternal luminaries, illuminating the path ahead for ourselves and others.
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