The first marketing job I had was in a photo processing company. I worked in Sales and Marketing where I was charged with designing, printing and distributing handbills that were slipped into the bags that customers were given when they processed their photos. (This was all before digital photography and social media.) In our company, we also had a Customer Service Department. They handled all the complaints that our distribution centers had from customers.

One day a call came into the switchboard operator. It was a customer who was standing at the service desk at a retail center. The call was out of kilter from the start. First, our company protocol said that the retail centers dealt with customers. They took the complaints and then called our customer service department, who would then try to resolve the problem with the retail center employee, who would then convey the solution to the customer. Customers were not to call our offices directly. But the exasperated retail center employee decided she would hand the phone over to the customer. This was the first problem. The second problem was the routing of the call. The switchboard operator sent the call to the marketing department, not customer service. The third problem was the customer asked to speak to a person who was in charge – who had the authority to bend all the rules to make the customer’s problem go away. The call came to me. I was the lowest of the low men on the totem pole in my department. I was the youngest person working there. I had worked there the shortest amount of time. However, my boss was out to lunch, so were all of the sales representatives. The VP of Sales and Marketing was also out of the office. In fact, I was the only person in the marketing department at the time of the call. So when I picked up the phone, the man on the other end began to explain his problem and emphatically made his point on how I could fix things for him. I began to think to myself, "What has this got to do with marketing?” The answer to that question - it has everything to do with marketing. One unhappy customer is soon to be a former customer if you don’t fix his problem. He will spread his bad experience to all his friends and family members. If marketing is charged with enticing customers to buy more from your company and making sure the corporate brand is held in high esteem, then fixing this man’s problem had everything to do with marketing. So on that day, I made a decision that I was not qualified to make. I "authorized” the fix the man wanted and we kept him as a customer. (And no one in customer service was the wiser!)

Now let’s fast forward to today. Marketing is not a silo within a company – a single department that operates independently of other corporate departments. Marketing is a holistic function of the entire company. The way you interact with customers on all levels is part of marketing. So is the speed at which you deliver a product or service. Don’t forget the quality of your products. That, too, is part of the marketing process. Those are external functions of marketing – in which you are touching the customer in one way or the other. But there are internal functions as well, such as your corporate culture and the way in which you produce what you do. Today’s business-to-consumer relationship is much more transparent than it used to be. How you treat your employees matters to your customers. Where you spend your charitable dollars matters to your customers. Who you employ to make your products or implement your services matters to your customers. It becomes part of the marketing equation.

Many have labeled this holistic marketing. It recognizes that anything you do in business can, and should, be a part of your marketing message.

"A holistic marketing concept is based on the development, design, and implementation of marketing programs, processes, and activities that recognize their breadth and interdependencies. Holistic marketing recognizes that ‘everything matters’ with marketing and that a broad, integrated perspective is necessary to attain the best solution.” Philip Kotler, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University.

We recommend our customers take phased approach to marketing. This involves any activities that make your target market aware of your brand, efforts involving enticing the customer to purchase from you, and all your labors to retain your customers. However, we focus on more than just your target market and current customers. We also like to identify and market to the key influencers of your target market. These people may never buy from you, but they hold sway over those who do. Taking this kind of approach means that it will take more than a couple of employees in your marketing department to make marketing work. It takes everyone understanding they are a big part of the reason someone would buy from you. In essence, marketing is on everyone’s job description when you take a holistic approach.

Examine your marketing efforts. Are you still using a silo for your marketing department or have you helped all your employees see their piece of the marketing equation? Today’s business environment calls for a holistic approach to marketing.