Author: Garth Beyer

I’m not a perfect marketer. I don’t play out to be. I’m all about failing often, failing fast, and holding dear to the trial & error mindset. So when I talk about the marketer’s two clicks of disgrace: copy and paste, it’s not that I never do it; it’s that I try not to and recognize the action as a check in point about the work I’m doing. Is it remarkable? Personal? Human?

When we copy and paste we’re most likely…

Coming off as a robot

Not attributing credit where it’s due

Removing the emotion

Taking a shortcut that gets you ahead but not in the direction of your goal

Not caring

Next time you copy and paste, think about what you’re doing. It’s likely you’re doing (or not doing) more than a couple of clicks.

 

Stay Positive & Original, Caring, Honest

Photo credit

The worst argument a marketer can make in a meeting about creative, about ads, about marketing is that something won’t work because it doesn’t appeal to them.

Another way to look at it: I don’t use Pinterest, so why would the target use it. Screw Pinterest.

Another way: That ad doesn’t speak to me, show me something different.

Why are these examples so wrong? Because the marketer is considering herself part of the target when she’s not. As marketers (often egotistical ones) the story we tell ourselves is that we know best, so if it’s marketing that moves us, then it will obviously speak to the target.

This story is a lie.

Just because we don’t use a platform doesn’t mean the platform’s not getting used. Look at MySpace. It has more than 50 million (!) active users on it.

Just because it’s a book we didn’t enjoy, doesn’t mean it won’t make the bestsellers list. More than 600 readers of the book Outliers have taken time to give it a low star review on Amazon, yet it’s still on the list.

Just because we don’t have clunky polaroid cameras anymore doesn’t mean Polaroid isn’t still relevant.

 

Stay Positive & You Are Not Your Target

Photo credit

I love a marketing campaign I’m working on. More so, I love the spreadsheet I’m working with. I love what my team does with it. On a regular basis, the sheet gets ran through and people get highlighted, not so much as top priority to contact (even though they are), rather they get marked as insiders. They are the 20 percent who bring 80 percent of the influence to the event. They are the insiders.

Evaluate your media list, your list of clients, your list of followers.

Where on your spreadsheet are the insiders? The people who you have made feel they matter?

Find them and care for them first.

 

Stay Positive & Let Your Insiders Bring In The Outsiders

We’re thick into the marketing belief that if we get seen by enough people, if our SEO is tweaked regularly, if we push out enough content, if we buy enough ad space, then we’re bound to be successful. The more we’re seen, our product is seen, our service is seen, the more we’ll sell – or so the thinking goes.

Real marketing, however, is about seeing others. It’s about consistently showing and telling someone who you see them, that you are listening to them, that you care about them – you make them feel they’re being seen, not you.

If there’s a way to tweak SEO to show others they’re being seen, if we give content that matters specifically to that one person, if we buy ad space and fill it up with the target instead of the product, then we can say we’re doing marketing the right way, the relevant way, the way that resonates.

Think back to a time you were happy to be seen, to be recognized for who you were. Are you making your customer, client, target feel that way?

 

Stay Positive & You Do See Them, Right?

Photo credit

It’s been more than six years since I’ve been to Boston. I’m here for #INBOUND15 – a fairly large (10,000+ people) marketing conference. I stayed traditional and took a taxi from the airport to where I’m staying.

The 20 minute drive was filled with the driver telling me all about UberX: how most drivers lack insurance, how they don’t actually make much money, how so many of his taxi driving friends switched over to the darkside.

I’ll be UberXing to the conference and back to the airport when it’s time to leave. None of what he told me convinced me not to.

In his rant, he forgot to say anything that mattered to me, the customer. At the end of MY day, UberX is cheaper, so why not?

If Taxis, UberXs, anyone, really, wants to make it in business, they’ve got to consider what’s in it for the customer and not get lost in the battle of what’s in it for themselves.

 

Stay Positive & Brag To Your Customers, Don’t Rant To Them

Photo credit

I’ve heard the suggestion made often.

Outsource this. Hire a virtual assistant for that.

For things that can be rated as efficient/non-efficient, this tactic works.

But we’ll never be able to outsource the things that matter like caring, loving, trusting.

That starts and ends with us, and us alone. Businesses trying to shortcut it, outsource it, virtualize it are wasting their time.

 

Stay Positive & You Either Care Or You Don’t