Marketing for Engineers

When asking people to mention a word that they associate with marketing, they will most certainly mention advertising or selling. The scope of the marketing team in an engineering project is often limited to promoting and selling the product or service that the engineers create. The reach of marketing is, however, broader than communicating with potential and existing customers.

Engineering and marketing are not as far apart as might seem. In 1969, marketing guru Philip Kotler and his colleague Levy wrote a seminal article about the essence of marketing. Marketing, they wrote, is “customer satisfaction engineering”. Both marketing and engineering are processes to achieve an objective. Marketing and engineering can work together to not only provide technical excellence but also to meet the needs of customers.

This series of articles explores various topic about using marketing theory in engineering, with specific reference to managing water utilities.