How do you define marketing?

If you were to take multiple professional marketers in B2B, their definition of marketing would vary. The term "marketing" leads to multiple answers and also, multiple concerns.  The one common denominators for them all would be: Growth and Revenue.

But how do you set your parameters for growth and revenue?  Is it just marketing involved in this conversation?

I'm not talking about marketing objectives or goals-Those should be clear and concise.  We should be SMART after all right?  What I am talking about is how you define marketing and how it supports sales.  There's a blurry line between sales activity and marketing activity.  I come across Marketing professionals with more experience with sales and they can't really define their parameters of how marketing impacts their business.

Story time

I had a recent discovery call with a Senior VP of marketing.  When asking him about what he did for marketing, he simply responded by giving me hundreds of salespeople on his team and briefly explained rudimentary marketing.   Marketing to him was having his small team create PDF's for email blasts. This prospect has a website with a lot of content.  He mentioned the website represented only 5% of their business.  He didn't seem comfortable explaining the effectiveness of their e-commerce site.  My team was able to see that  their marketing efforts go to supporting their sales people that send quotes and close deals.   Sales enablement was actually more vital than their E-commerce site.  Their industry relies on wo(man) power and the motivation of their sales people.  While it's questionable they do nothing with their e-commerce, they at least have defined what the value of marketing is for them.

IT has a loud voice

Some industries are behind when it comes to marketing and also, technology.  Technology is now a big part of marketing.  Data and insights are just as important to CMO's as overall brand recognition.  They actually work hand in hand.  Multiple articles have described the relationship alignment between CMO's and CIO's.   The digital side of marketing is making it a necessity for both Marketing and IT to define their success online. 

Marketers are tasked with understanding how they should define marketing.  It's not quite cut and dry as it used to be.  No matter what type of marketing you do, it has to translate to sales and growth.  How you do it only matters if it isn't working for you