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Marketing Tools for Increasing Proactivity in Technical Information Centers

Let’s start at the beginning. Marketing is a process of activities that fosters an exchange between two parties,
be they individuals or organizations. One party has something that the other party wants. An exchange
occurs. Marketing facilitates the exchange process by ensuring that one party has what the other party is
willing to enter into the exchange process for. Any number of factors can interrupt the exchange process; for
example, a product can be too expensive, not needed, difficult to get, not inviting. The marketing process
helps to overcome obstacles to a smooth exchange.

For information professionals the 1985 definition of marketing adopted by the American Marketing Associa-
tion is especially meaningful, because it distinguishes “goods” and “services,” laying the foundation for
marketing strategies that differ in their approach for the two different types of “products.”

Most services, such as hotel, airline, banking, child care, and information services, pose a particular problem:
The service doesn’t exist until someone needs it. The service is intangible. Unlike goods that can be seen and
tried before purchase, services are invisible until needed. Ah, and there’s the rub. Ifyou can’t see it, how do
you market it? How do you go about convincing a potential customer that your service deserves an exchange?
With the recognition of the differences between goods and services came the identification of how to adapt
established marketing management tools to the unique conditions surrounding the successful exchange of
services. The discovery of service-oriented marketing techniques continues today as our economies become
increasingly based on services instead of industrial products.

“Marketing and selling are not the same thing. Selling is concerned with trying to get
people to want what you have. Marketing is concerned with trying to have what people
will want. Selling starts with taking to the marketplace what comes out of the factory.
Marketing starts with trying to make in the factory what will sell in the marketplace.
Marketing starts with trying to understand what people Want and value, looking at the
choices and resources (like money, time, etc.) available to them, and then designing
products, delivery systems, sales programs, communications, price and a lot of other
things appropriate to what you’ve found out about those people.”