There are 4 P’s to marketing:
Why is it that in higher education (and maybe other industries too) we so often align marketing with only the last “P” promotion. When was the last time that you as a marketing professional was brought in at the front end to talk about the product? So often we are given a final product and asked to promote it or told that “we need some PR help.”
Over the last 6-8 months my team has had the chance to have several “product” conversations with clients and have started to gain some momentum and success. It is still challenging to have product conversations – they take time. You have to really get to know your client, their goals, their organization and how your can help enhance their product.
In 2011 I hope to get involved in more than just promotion make sure we are we thinking about product, price, and place as well.
Higher Ed Web Marketing 
You are absolutely right, confining marketing to promotion is very common. However, it is contrary to educated use. It contradicts what is taught in the business courses on college campuses.
Several years ago, i came across this analogy. Marketing is like an iceberg. Only a portion of an iceberg is visible above the water, that portion is promotion. Price, product, and place are hidden beneath the water.
The iceberg thing analogy came up when we had a meeting last December, because of the visibility of the tip of the iceberg above the water, the Titanic (or used by my colleague as the consumers) sank without being aware of the three other P’s that were not visible.