But is it marketing...?

Got caught up this morning in the discussion from a Mitch Joel post on the idea of hiring journalists to work in corporate marketing departments.

http://bit.ly/jUmLIE

Of course, this is a wonderful idea. Journalists know how to write stuff that people actually want to read, and that's a great start if you're looking to engage.

This brings another question to my mind, though. If these "marketing journalists" are really independent, as many respondents suggest they should be, is this really marketing? It seems to me that rather than expanding our definition of marketing, we are doing something altogether different.

If we publish materials written by journalists, I would argue that we are providing a free service to our prospects. If they take us up on it, they in effect become customers, albeit not paying ones.

We all know that non-paying customers are a huge asset for the likes of Google and Facebook. Can they be for, say, a software firm or a consulting firm? I think so. The point is that non-paying customers get to know us. And as any salesperson will tell you, people tend to buy from whom they know.