Are you at war with your customers?

Do you view marketing as an act of brute force against the consumer?  The odds are that your knee-jerk response is, "no." But the language you use when you talk about marketing may indicate otherwise. 

Is your marketing-speak peppered with words like target, campaign, preempt, and penetrate?

This post is not simply about semantics. We choose the language we use for specific, if sometimes sub-conscious, reasons.  And when we use the words of warfare to describe our efforts to communicate with and influence people it says something about the way see view our discipline and our role vis a vis the people who buy our products. 

Marketing isn't about us VS them - it is about us AND them.  It is not something you do TO a person, but rather something you do FOR them.

Try this.  When you talk about marketing, use words like partner, service, invite and collaborate.  See how quickly your entire marketing approach changes.