Marketing touches every area of your organization.

Of course, the degree to which this is true differs among companies. Each organization divides responsibilities differently.

But the truth remains, marketing is everywhere.

Marketers are the people who create the stories that get things noticed - like your products and services. They create the messages that make things resonate with people. If they’re worth their salt, and they're good team players, then this is also true: the same skills they use to get messages through to your consumers equip them well to create effective, well-considered communications to your internal employees.

People need and want stories. Your marketing team are the storytellers.

You know how employees can no longer rest on their laurels? How it's no longer a viable option to ride out a 30-year tenure at the company store into a life of comfortable pension and social security? How individuals these days must continuously evolve and cultivate their “professional brand” to stay relevant? A loathsome term, maybe, but it speaks to a truth about the modern employee today.

The same principles that move the modern employee apply to the modern consumer.

With your big exceptions (Southwest Airlines, Apple, et al.), folks these days just ain't loyal to the company anymore. As an organization, as a brand, you have to earn your keep every single day. Think about it: they don't need to be loyal anymore. They can reach into their pocket, pull out a supercomputer, click 3 buttons, and sort prices throughout the earth, lowest to highest. Who needs you?!

Consumers are savvier than ever.

They know what’s out there. It is all right at their fingertips. What's that mean? You’d better be busting your buns to build some heart equity with them. To weave them a story that endears them to your cause, that makes them want to pluck your humble organization out of the vast sea of options and bless you with their patronage.

That’s the stuff that reduces churn. That’s what creates advocates. That’s what amplifies word of mouth marketing.

When it comes to your organization:

Any misstep = bad marketing. Any success = good marketing.

Simple as that.

Everything is marketing.

Marketing can augment every part of your operations, in the eyes of the ones who matter most. The ones who hold the keys to your organization's future, and to your employees’ future. Your consumers.

And I encourage you to ask yourself: when they interact with your organization, do they simply consume - or do they indulge, immerse, even imbibe?