Video Transcript: "Introduction to Marketing"

In this unit, we're going to be exploring biblical standards for marketing, and I'm  going to suggest to you that as Christians, we have a unique advantage in the  marketplace, and that we have the greatest marketing genius in all of history as  our example, and he is none other than our Lord Jesus Christ. I'm going to  share more about that, and some marketing lessons that we can learn from  Jesus as we go forward in this unit. But in this introductory video, I'm going to  offer up some definitions of marketing. What is it to be a marketer and what is  marketing? What is marketing? Well, first of all, I define a marketer, and this is  consistent with other definitions that I've come across, of academic definitions  and so on, a marketer is one who seeks a specific response. So this is without  regard to the industry that you're in or the sector, whether you're working in  government or the nonprofit sector, raising money. You're in government, trying  to win votes, or you're in the business world, as we are seeking to sell products  and seeking to ultimately lead people to Jesus Christ, and lead people as we  are making disciples. We are wanting to set the example. In effect we are  marketing the example of Jesus, Christ in the ways of God in the business  world. That ultimately is what we are marketing, but certainly we are also selling  products and services as business professionals. So what is marketing? I define marketing as the art and science of strategic influence. So this isn't just sort of  influence that yes, we all kind of inadvertently influence people, and we have  influence in our lives, whether we realize it or not. Yes, we certainly do. But  marketing is about strategic influence. It's about deliberate influence, and that's  why it's called an art and a science. There, there is both sort of this artistic  aspect of marketing, where there's the the innovation and and ways of doing  things, and then there's the science, where there and in marketing, we're  constantly looking at analytics, and we're wanting to know what is working, what  isn't going back to what John Wanamaker said, the father of modern advertising, he said that half of my advertising budget is wasted. I just don't know which half, and this is back in the 1800s when he's saying that. And now we certainly have  many more ways to quantify the impact of our marketing efforts, but that's a  simple definition of a marketer and marketing marketer one who seeks a specific response, and then marketing is the art and science of strategic influence, and  as Part of marketing, helping us to understand really what it is. It's important to  note that marketing has many components. So if you're familiar with for  example, like I sell Social Media Services, and one of the questions I often get,  especially from the older generation of customers, where they're just not really  all that familiar with the benefits of social media on the bottom line, and I try to  help them understand that social media is not a direct response marketing  strategy or technique per se. Typically, it's going to be a branding and an  engagement play. And so direct response marketing is, this is how much I'm  spending for this particular service or this particular ad campaign. And there  better be a direct result. There better be a direct impact on the bottom line, I 

better know that I'm spending this much on whatever the component of  marketing is, in this case, social media, if I'm running if I'm promoting posts on  Facebook, sharing content, things like that, that they want to know, what is the  return on investment directly and and that, but that they're separate kind of  subsets of what marketing is so. And within marketing, yes, there is that direct  response, clear return on investment type of marketing that it has really the I  would say that the older generations are more used to and certainly we are all  looking for a direct return on investment, on our marketing dollars. But there's  also branding is another subset, and that is that is critically powerful in the  today's marketplace, and differentiating and positioning would be. Another so  advertising would be another one. So when you see advertising has changed as well, and actually is becoming more measurable with things like Facebook  advertising, where you can see, I'm putting this much into the ad that is kind of  going out on Facebook, which is sort of kind of a modern billboard, in a sense,  but certainly much more highly targeted than saying, Well, I know that our  company seems to do well in this particular town, so let's put up a billboard on  side of the highway. Facebook has done this and other Google as well, but  Facebook certainly has done a great job of helping us to highly target our ads as marketers. And I would also say that marketing is vital in every industry. So  whether you're in the nonprofit world raising funds, you're trying to share the  message of what your organization is doing, again, going back to a previous unit that we talked about, and how, if you have to help your your donors, they have  to, if they're going to buy it and they're going to donate their money, in essence,  you still have to provide a service. You still have to render a service, and they  have to decide what, intangibly, am I going to get out of even though there's no  goods or services rendered in exchange for a donation, even as a nonprofit, if  that's the type of organization you're running, you still have to tell a story. You  still have to you still have to get that donor to buy in to what it is the impact, the  social impact, spiritual impact, however you want to frame it, but certainly in the  whatever industry you're in, if you're an author, if you're In in manufacturing, to  be able to get new new clients and new products to manufacture, if you're in  education, to get new students for in the government, you're trying to get people  to vote for you. But all it's a little more straightforward in the business world, in  the private sector, but this applies across the board, and these are just some of  the statements that you might hear from a marketer, even though they might not  phrase it exactly in these ways. Buy my product, subscribe to my online service.  Or subscribe. You know, I've got some some clients that are Chiropractic Clinics, and they're wanting to bring in new clients. Sign up for this cause, donate to this  charity, vote for me, join my team, come to my event. These are all things that  we do as marketers, and we do them in virtually every aspect of our lives. So as  Christians, as I said at the beginning of this video, we are so blessed to have the greatest marketer in all of history as our Lord and Savior. And it just baffles me 

that when I come across these lists of greatest marketers in history, how they  typically don't mention Jesus, and yet, one out of three people in the world  claims to be a follower of Jesus. We're talking 2000 plus years after he walked  the face of the earth. And so that is just absolutely incredible. Well, it's right  around 2000 years so and the most watched film is about Jesus. So that's what  film is that that's the Jesus film put out by Campus Crusade, now known as  crew. So while it may not have been a big box office blockbuster, these these  incredible men and women of God had taken the Jesus film all around the world, and so even in places where they don't even have a movie theater, they don't  even have electricity, in some cases, they would set up a generator and a  projector and screen and show this film in the native language of the people in  those areas. The most read, best selling book is about him. Of course, we're  talking about the Bible. And so when people talk about the greatest marketers,  again, going back to our definition, which is strategic influence, one who seeks a response, nobody did this more effectively than Jesus, not Steve Jobs, not  Richard Branson, not Bill Gates, but it's Jesus Christ. 92% of the first 138 US  universities were founded for his followers, and certainly many of the other great universities. Around the world were also founded by for by and for of followers of Jesus to help them shape more of a biblical worldview. As I said, one out of  three people in the world claims to follow him, but these are followers who are  punished for following him. So there is a price to pay. In many countries. That  price is death, that price is imprisonment, torture, social isolation. It's you're now  an outcast from our family, from our society, for claiming to be a follower of  Jesus, and yet people still follow him in the face of all that persecution. Another  unique thing about Jesus as a marketer is that his followers have a global  presence. So we're not just talking about a religious leader that started his  movement in one part of the world, and it just sort of stayed concentrated in that  part of the world. No, the that Christianity, the Gospel, has just been on the  move throughout the globe, and is just so prevalent in south in this in the  southern hemisphere, now moving to the east and just all around the world,  there is such a large presence of His followers. So if you're looking for the  greatest influencer in all of history, and I'm not just talking about learning how to  market your church, or how to market the gospel per se. Of course, we're talking about setting the standard. We're talking about making disciples. That ultimately, is what the Great Commission is all about. And Jesus is, of course, the one that  gave us the Great Commission. We ought to learn from his example, based on  that alone, but he's the greatest marketer in all of history, the greatest, most  effective, strategic influencer, even if you were to just look at it based on the  results of looking 2000 years after he walked the earth, that we still have one out of three people in the world claiming to be a follower of Jesus. Course, we can  argue who actually is a Christian. That's you can go to some of the other  seminary classes to dive into more of the theological issues related to salvation. 

But suffice it to say that a enormous, an enormous part of the world's population  claims to be a follower of Jesus, because He is the greatest marketer in all of  history, and nobody will ever match his impact. Nobody will ever match his  standard, but we are called to live up to his standards of influence, doing it the  way that he did it, and that's what we're going to learn in this unit