I think there’s a fuzzy definition of ‘communications’ and ‘marketing’ in the educational and nonprofit worlds. Having a newsletter or magazine isn’t marketing. Creating a brochure isn’t marketing.

Matching content—online, in print or in some other way—to a target population is marketing.

Measuring effectiveness—ruthlessly, sometimes, even—is marketing.

Because if you’re doing marketing right, you’re not selling to your customer, you’re finding or creating or matching an opportunity to your customer that will solve their problem, make them happier or provide them an opportunity to address a need. So, you’d better be effective, and you better be targeted, and you better have not YOUR bottom line in mind, but what your service or product can do for your CUSTOMER. That should seep into every action, from your advertising, to your web messaging, to their experience when they walk in the door or use your product.

That is marketing, and most organizations do it poorly.