A couple of years ago, I got into this weird argument with my Dad. My Dad is a really smart man. He’s a radio engineer by trade, then studied IT as a mature -age student, and now owns a data centre consulting and training business. He’s the sort of guy that has every tool you’ll ever need and once built a double brick garage and most places our families have lived, he’s built decks. Plus, he’s really financially smart and often bores me with talk about shares and the next big thing on the stock market.

The weird argument started when he asked me what the difference is between marketing and advertising. Seeing I have bucket loads of marketing experience, teach it at university, and have a master of marketing, I was confident I had it covered.

So, I confidently said something like, “Advertising is just one element of the promotion activities a business undertakes. It’s an element that works in combination, and is a result of, a bunch of other stuff like market research, the product, pricing, and stuff like that.”

“Right, but what is the difference?” he countered.

We started to go round and round in a weird conversation where the more I tried to explain it, the less he understood. I couldn’t even explain what marketing actually was in a way that made sense to a non-marketer.

In the end, I kind of just gave up.

In this episode, I'll give you a really easy to follow the definition of marketing and talk to you about how you can use the age-old Marketing Mix to find people with a need and get them to trust you.