Spot The Deliberate Mistake

I was recently asked to take part in the following online survey:

What has been your most successful method of generating new business to date? 

• Cold Calling
• Marketing
• Referrals
• Social Media
• Repeat Business
• Resellers
• Channels

A good and well thought out survey you may think and one that I'm looking forward to seeing the results of.

But take a second look, every single one of the items on the list are tools from the marketing tool kit. Amongst the glaring omissions are Direct Mail, Networking and Advertising - and there lies the "deliberate mistake". 

I'm guessing here that like so many people the author of the survey is confusing the two separate entities of Marketing and Advertising.

Marketing is getting the right product, to the right people, at the right price, in the right place and at the right time. Advertising is merely one of the tools for achieving the result.