Marketing, everybody seems to agree these days, is a necessary part of running a rental business, at least a typical one; there may be some specialty houses that can get by without it, but they're the rare exceptions. So there's agreement in principle, but when you get into the jots and tittles of the topic, it seems that not everyone has the same notion of what marketing is. Bill Veneris has noted this too, and takes it up in his column this month. Too many people think it's advertising, or hanging a "Special This Week" sign on an endcap.

Ask a marketing manager from a manufacturing company and you'll get a very different answer, something like this: marketing is satisfying the customer's need throughout the entire fulfillment chain. That's a pretty broad definition - and totally accurate. For a manufacturer, marketing starts with an idea about a market need, proceeds to market research to test the idea, then to product definition and product development, then field testing and customer feedback, then further refinement, and then sales and public promotion, including a mix of both advertising and public relations.

And it doesn't stop there - the marketing process goes on to include distribution and, after the product has been in the field awhile, more customer feedback, based on a real-world-size sample, and product redefinition and refinement. How can something like "distribution" be part of marketing? Because it's part of the entire fulfillment chain. Because it's part of satisfying the customer's need.

What's this have to do with you? You're not a manufacturer. Granted. But you do have a fulfillment chain of your own to manage, and it probably starts farther upstream than many in the rental business have been inclined to consider until recently. Certainly it starts before that customer walks in the door. The idea is to get that customer to walk in the door: create a need.

Picture a sign out in front of your rental store that says, "We fix winter blahs." And then you park a bunch of spring cleanup products around where they can be seen. Do you suppose you might chip your way into that estimated 56 percent of the public that has never rented anything, by suggesting a need that you can meet?

And when that customer comes back to return the tool, do you set up your next shot, like a good pool player? - Ask what problem you can help solve next? The counter and yard people are your first-string marketing team.

Is your service department part of your marketing scheme? Your delivery drivers? Absolutely: they're part of the fulfillment chain.

How about your accounting department? Is efficient, flawless billing part of the fulfillment chain? Yes.

In fact, it's hard to think of what isn't "marketing."

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