Marketing crosses most paths of communication. You want to “sell” someone on an idea. You want to get people to “buy” your story. You want people to “buy into” your messages. Marketing.

There are a bazillion books on marketing, a gazillion theories and a trazillion marketing experts. So what are we doing here? Marketing is pure, simple communications that has measurable results. Communications is successful if people “buy” your product, service or policy – if you get them to do or buy what you want them to. If they don’t “buy”, it’s because your product isn’t what they want, or your marketing communications wasn’t effective.

It doesn’t matter if you’re marketing your community, your product, your policy, your image or your skills. Marketing is marketing. There are interesting variations occurring with the Internet, where marketing is often confused with aggressive promotion and advertising. But this is being off-set by “permission marketing”. (For more on this, check out Seth Godin in Fast Company – http://www.fastcompany.com/team/sgodin.html)

• Market Assessment – Know the environment into which you are stepping so you can market accordingly.
• Market Strategy – Have a strategy that lays out where you’re going, why, and how you’re going to get there – and lays out how you will measure your success.
• Marketing Plans – Have a series of marketing plans to reach your target audiences in a variety of ways.
• Branding - Ensure that your marketing communications tools have the image, content and design that reflect you and your messages.