Marketing Is Experience
What is marketing? Most believe it synonymous with advertising. Others say it’s communications. Others think it is sales. The standard definition goes like this: “the action or business of promoting and selling products or services, including market research and advertising.”
It’s time to define marketing in a new way. Seth Godin says marketing is experience. So marketing is all the above, from research to communications, with the goal of a sale.
AdWeek stated that companies are no longer just making and marketing products because they are really in the business of “crafting user experience.” It can be called interface design.
CX (Customer Experience) is the new brand priority. It will take incredible collaboration across all functions, technologies, teams and partners to satisfy today’s customers. Voice, AI, technology ecosystems, advertising, the music you play, the website and customer service all play an additive role in the satisfaction of customers.
Marketing is growing in organization. Journey mapping and researching the customer experience will become more important. Because marketing doesn’t need a long definition, just one word, experience.
Mark Mathis
Mark wrote his first direct-mail fundraising letter in 1981 for the University of Iowa Center for Advancement. The effort raised a few million dollars in undiscovered wills and legacy gifts. From that day forward Mark discovered a love of the big idea that moves the needle.
After 12 years at KWWL, Mark became a business owner as a co-founder of ME&V — rebranded as AMPERAGE in 2015. After 25 years of leading creative teams in video production, graphic design, PR, writing and web development, Mark transitioned out of ownership in 2021. Today he serves in an employee role as special projects consultant.
He is creatively ambidextrous — son of an artist and engineer — and famous for distilling complex ideas down to a few words and a few visuals. Mark is a writer. When he found that many nonprofits struggled with complex branding puzzles, he wrote the book, “NonProfit-NonMarketing .” He also wrote a novel called “Reenactment.”
Mark is an active blogger OneMinuteMarketer® with nearly 1,000 readers each week on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. One of his most popular YouTube videos is on “How to Look Good on Zoom.”
One of Mark’s fondest business memories was being named to INC 500 two times and attending the INC 500 conference with other winners. Mark is considered by some a Civil War expert (and that explains his novel). Mark also served as an adjunct professor in the business and in the communications departments at Wartburg College.
Mark is a graduate of the University of Iowa and is currently vice president of the University of Iowa Journalism and Mass Communications Advisory Board.
Mark is married to state Sen. Liz Mathis, and the two love to travel, even when it means being trapped by a volcano in the Czech Republic for three weeks.