The web is like junk food to a generation of marketers.
They chew on it because it’s there. It’s like muscle memory doing the same thing over and over because it looks good in the mirror.
It’s often exercise without form or results. And worse—we do it simply because we can.
I seriously love the web. How it has changed our world. How it has reconfigured how we build brands and sell products. How it has turned upside down how we interact how with our customers.
It’s dark side is that while it has made the impossible plausible, and everyone a marketer and a brand, it has created a generation of posturers, along with an echo chamber of deafening noise.
And I’m personally not exempt from the lure of vanity cruising. The behaviorally insane truth that I care if someone likes a picture of Sam, my cat (as wonderful as he certainly is!). Of mistaking activity with work.
Social porn is fun to play with—it’s just not marketing.
BACK TO MARKETING BASICS is a message in all caps I have on my computer screen this week. It is not retro in the least, nor a call to a better, simpler past. Not at all! It is all about core behavioral values and market truths.
The opposite of social grinning is not advertising. Not email. Not SEO. Not any channeled tactic over one or the other.
I believe that marketing starts with belief and intent. Period.
My biggest lament about most marketing I see, is that is all exclamation points. It’s all trolling to discover themselves in the eyes of the customer. It’s like politicians taking polls to discover what to talk about. Kind of insincere and invariably unsuccessful. Heartless and substanceless.
Define marketing basics?
Certainly!
1. Internalizing the core value of who you are and what you sell
If you don’t know who you or your company is, get to work and figure it out.
You may not be right forever but you need to know in your gut that this is what you are about right now.
2. Acknowledging the difference between core value and market fit
This is my favorite one. Market fit is not a reflection (usually) of what you believe in. It is a mashup of belief, the economics of your value, how you deliver it and to whom. Ninety percent of what people call ‘minor pivots’ are not about core value at all. They are about iterating market fit.
Iterating beliefs is strictly for amateurs, not the serious or inspired.
3. Talking to customers in their own language
Marketing is about what you don’t say and how what you do say is heard. Iconization of customer needs is the art; choosing language is the craft. If you are dumping Instagram photos and Tweets to Facebook, Tumblr posts to Twitter without thought, you are doing more harm than good. It’s just exercise in a vacuum.
4. Sell value by understanding customer behavior
If you believe in your value, don’t gently nudge it forward but smartly and passionately sell it. In almost all cases we aren’t selling a better barbecue, we are selling a different approach to eating. Find the language and the passion, giving the customer the way to opt in to the discussion, then sell away. Here’s a post on selling value.
Understanding why a customer would respond defines the language and context of how you sell. If you can’t understand, on the social web, why a customer should care enough to share, why are you bothering? Here’ a post on just that.
5. Respecting the market’s attention span
Attention is the currency of the market. Customers opt in, give you their time, out of respect. This is a gift to the lucky. Take this opportunity seriously. This doesn’t mean you are all serious–or even perfect. Honest intent will trump form every single time.
I disdained survey marketing when it was the vogue. I disdain the easiness of ‘what do you think’ or ‘discuss’ as leading the customer to a conversation. It invariably is a bright light on the Exit sign and a quick slide unsubscribe and unfollow link. Teaching is not leading necessarily and the market is not your classroom.
Don’t waste anyone’s time is as true a goal as you can have.
Thinking before you act is not overrated
I try and consider these five core basics before I act each and every time.
These are building blocks of strategy. They often determine organically how you determine the channels you should target, the language you should use, the offers you should make and the messages you want remembered.
Some stuff just works on email. Some segments just rock on Instagram and hit the floor with a thud on Twitter. Markets and messages are channel specific.
I’m all about understanding craft. I’m very much a believer that each channel for communications has its rules-of-thumb that we need to become masters of, from know when to post and understanding the value and limitations of the analytics you can gather.
But–I would choose a crisp message about a core value infused with passion with absolutely no budget and no tools except drums and smoke signals, over instant and free access to the web and just nothing useful or inspiring to say.
