Better marketing – first things first!
Ignore the ghost of marketing past
If we want to do better marketing – marketing we can be proud of – first we have to recognise what it is, and what it isn’t.
In the past we’ve been led to believe that our marketing has to reach the maximum number of people. They’ll just have to see what we’re offering so that they’ll take it. If we tell (or sell) them enough features or benefits, they are bound to snap it up, right?
For some people, that’s true… it will be right for them and they may relate and sign up or purchase what we’re offering. That’s normally a pretty small number if we’re mass marketing though, because we’re yelling our message out at a whole lot of people who aren’t ‘our’ people. The effort (and expense) is wasted, and actually rather annoying, making people even less likely to engage with us in the future.
I first studied marketing more than twenty years ago. The “Four Ps” – Product, Price, Promotion and Place – were everything. If those things were ticked off on our ‘marketing plan’ then we were sorted. We shoved our message in front of as many people as we could and hoped that if we annoyed enough people our sales and (more recently) our click-through rates would cover a multitude of sins.
We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto
Fortunately, in the era of technology and innovation we’re in, we don’t have to operate that way. With the resources we have, we are able to put our message in front of people we want to see it. More importantly, we can (and should) put it in front of the people who choose to see it.
If we continue to pursue the narrow definition of marketing we had in the past, we are relegating ourselves to the definition of crazy. You know the one “if we keep doing what we’re doing, we’ll keep getting what we’ve been getting”. Changing the flavour (or the tactic) used to annoy someone – no matter how new and shiny it is – will still annoy them. We’ll continue to be frustrated by our lack of results and have to live with marketing that we’re not proud of.
Marketing changes when we come to the realisation that we are here to serve others and to help them solve their problem (whatever that may be). To do that, we must know who they are, where to find them and then have their engagement and permission.
If we re-frame marketing starting with why we’re doing what we’re doing, it gives us a compass for what we do and how we do it. “Why am I providing the service that I am? Why am I selling what I’m selling?” What is it that truly drives you, gets you out of bed in the morning, or gets you the most fired up*?
If we know our ‘why’ and can define our ‘who’ then perhaps the new marketing mix starts with ‘Purpose’ followed closely by ‘People’ and what they give to us: ‘Permission’.
What’s it all about, Alfie?
Your purpose is to make an impact, you’re seeking to make change happen. It might be behavioural change (educating people to use less plastic, for example), it could be introducing a financial literacy curriculum into schools, or even changing the way a group interacts. That change might seem insignificant or it might be (literally) world changing, how big the change is doesn’t matter. Marketing is how that change can come about.
Marketing is the act of making change happen.
Seth Godin
If we want to do work we’re proud of, we have to understand the change we seek to make and find the people who want to take the journey with us.
Why, why, why…
If we really want to get back to ‘first things first’ then it’s about finding our reason why.
Before we can even start to think about marketing plans and reading the latest ‘how-to’ guides and getting our heads around what the next ‘quick fix’ of marketing is, we really have to understand the true reason we’re doing what we’re doing.
What is the change that you are seeking to make? Who can you help?
Helping passionate small business owners understand how to reach the people who need them and supporting those business owners to do better, more meaningful, ethical and welcome marketing, is mine.
What’s yours?
Write it down somewhere. Stick it up on your wall next to where you work. And please, if you would, let me know what it is – either here or on my Facebook page.
I’d love to know how I might support you to share your why.
*Simon Sinek explains this beautifully and simply in his “Starts with Why” TED Talk