What's Holistic Marketing?

As only an audacious young MBA can do I'm going to create a new idea in business - and name my own little net-fiefdom after it, Holistic Marketing. I know, I know I'm going to upset all those folks who already think MBAs are "know-it-alls" but I don't care. You and I, well at least I, already know that I don't know everything.

You have heard of the marketing concept, a market orientation and integrated marketing communications but you haven't heard of Holistic Marketing...well now you have. So what is Holistic Marketing?

Holistic Marketing is the idea that marketing is everything. It is the idea that to truly be successful an organization must have a holistic approach to marketing where each facet of the organization is focused on how to add value to the customer and communicate that value.

Holistic Marketing is not just thinking about the customer strategically as in having a market orientation or achieving consistency of message, look and feel across all platforms as in integrated marketing communications but rather focusing on the principle that if value is not being created it is being destroyed.

The challenge is to focus on building value in everything that the organization does. Too often creating value is left to the innovators and strategists while marketers are tasked with communicating that value. This old paradigm is broken because it leaves out the folks in between who really drive value for any organization, the folks on the line who execute.

A business can have the best strategy and marketing communications in the world but if the people who deliver the product or service aren't interested in creating value for the customer then the entire equation will be undermined. The great challenge then is to get everyone within the organization pulling in the same direction.

One of the pillars of this new philosophy of business is the seminal work, Built to Last by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras. Collins and Porras postulate that one of the driving forces behind great organizations is a shared sense of purpose and a culture so strong it is almost cult-like. These two elements combine to give people within the organization something to believe in which results in them all pulling in the same direction.

When everyone in an organization feels empowered to create the next customer solution then you get value being added up and down the organization, even by those folks at the bottom of the pyramid. Holistic marketing is this concept; that value is not created in the corner office but by those on the line delivering the product or service to the customer. The folks on the line will only continue to add value if they are engaged in the process and empowered to do so, if not then your out of luck.

Remember, if value isn't being created it's being destroyed. The question you have to ask is...Are your people creating value or destroying it?