bondChristian

Photo by Randy OHC

Who does that, right? Who even thinks like that? Who even wants anyone to think like that?

Marketing to serve others is impossible. Marketing is evil. Marketers are liars. And anyone wanting to be marketed to is a moron.

I used to think something like that. Ah, but like so many other misnomers, it’s not the tool but the craftsman who makes it evil.

Marketing (the tool) tells people what they want or need to hear about.

Imagine you’re the inventor of Blue Bell Ice Cream. That’s fantastic – your product has a lot of potential. But who cares if no one knows about it. Marketing is telling the would-be, ice cream lovers about the deliciousness.

Marketing asks the question, How can I tell people what they want or need to hear? (And marketing follows up with action to make it happen.)

Thanks to selfishness, though, marketing (ironically) developed a bad reputation.

1. For some, marketing means lying. It’s often about finding ways to trick customers into thinking you’re offering what they want or need to hear. Enter cheesy, crazy promotional stunts.

2. For some, marketing means spam (not the spicy ham variety). Marketing is associated with marketers bombarding everyone with some worthless product offer, hoping some random fool will go for it.

Both these strategies, lying and spamming, are lousy. I’d argue they’re lousy for the marketer too, but they’re especially lousy for the potential customer. Who wants lies or spam?

But there’s another side to marketing. The other side actually has an amazing product. The other side promotes the amazing product to people who actually want or need it. That’s good marketing – that’s serving others.

For some, marketing means serving others.

And you know it’s serving others because the “others” actually want or need the product.

Marketing is a tool. You can use it to serve others or [not serve] others. It’s not marketing that’s the problem if it’s used the wrong way. It’s the marketer. Like any other power tool, you can either embrace marketing  to use it to serve others for God’s glory or ignore it to let others take advantage of it instead.

I’m sure you can guess what I suggest.

Serving Suggestions:

(1) Start by recommending something you’re enthusiastic about. Somehow Christians have developed the belief that marketing equals evangelizing, that it’s wrong to market anything else. But if something helps others, even if it’s not explicitly Christian, isn’t it serving others to market it?

(2) While you’re at it, recommend something for us here in the comments. I’ll start…