GarthBox

As marketers, it’s easy to get lost in social platforms, lost in creative ideas, lost in all the PR efforts you could be implementing. It’s all attention-worthy work. Shiny. New. Fun.

Yesterday I got asked to prove why social was a place we wanted to do work in for a particular client. I pulled an answer out of my ass because I hadn’t been working on supporting that case. Instead, I was busy working on slides that showed all we could do in social and less on why we should do it.

Why is the guy in the photo above where he is? What is he feeling? Thinking? What are his motivations? What’s the point of being there?

These are all questions we’ve got to ask when we work in the social and PR world.

Even harder to answer and prove: how do we know our audience is there? On Instagram? On FB? How do we know the target cares about the PR stunt we’re planning?

Yesterday was a great reminder that the work we do isn’t about just doing great work, it’s about showing people it’s great work that is in need of being done.

 

Stay Positive & Answering Tough Questions Leads To Better Results

Photo credit

“What’s the angle?”

I try to catch myself anytime I ask this question. Anytime I wonder how we can spin a message, how I can pitch something in a way that resonates.

I think there are a handful of other better questions to ask.

What do people deeply care about?

What really matters to the people who are going to experience this?

What feelings do they want to be left with when they leave?

The best message strategy is built off understanding the motivations of the target, not the motivations of the marketer or the benefits of the product.*

 

Stay Positive & Make Something That Does The Caring

*Unless they align. In which case, there’s rarely a need to do any marketing because the product/service markets itself.

Photo credit

There are two types of people in this world.

There are those who order off the menu. Then there are those who ask for what’s not on the menu, what’s special, what’s unique.

Likewise, there are two types of people in this world.

There are those who make what the menu offers. Then there are those who go above and beyond, who do the remarkable work of making something not on the menu.

 

Stay Positive & Items “Not On The Menu” Are In Higher Demand Than You Think

Photo credit

A PR pro with more than 30+ years experience reminded me of these tips in a 10 minute chat we had. They’ve helped me develop my PR credentials and thought they’d help you too.

1) Find the potential in everything

To find the potential, you have to be interested, to be interested, you have to be curious.

Even dust can be exciting. You know how when you clean the dust off an object it feels new, it’s like you’ve given life to the object again? Dust is sorta neat that way isn’t it?

2) Have the guts to get into a brand

You might not be interested in what the brand offers, but you’ll never be able to help it grow unless you become one with the brand.

See first tip.

3) Be brave enough to have weird conversations

The best way to learn how a brand can help people is to learn about people, which sometimes requires you to have weird conversations.

Jeane, the PR pro who reminded me of these tips, retold a story about how she was at a convention and talked to a dominatrix for more than an hour. Jeane learned more about how strongly pride plays a role in the choices people make in that hour chat than what she could Google in an hour.

Most weird conversations only start weird, which can be scary. Whenever I’m pitching, the first few sentences with someone feel so weird, but once there is just one episode of back and forth conversation, the weird dissipates. Be brave.

4) Learn about stuff you have not lived

Not only does it give you insight into people you may be working to get the attention of, it also provides conversation topics for any event, and we know how important being liked and relatable is.

I have not lived through a new business pitch that I didn’t pitch to the client face-to-face on their home turf, but I have learned that not visiting the client on their turf has led to an agency not winning their business.

See third tip.

 

Stay Positive & People Do Business With People (They Like)

Photo credit

Learning how to focus is a lot easier than we make it seem.

Let me ask you this: what is a way that it would be impossible for you NOT to focus?

Answer: it’s impossible for you not to focus when you’re curious.

When you’re asking “why”, when you’ve found a reason to be interested, when you’re curious, you’re bound to be completely submerged in what’s in front of you.

Having better focus isn’t rocket science, but finding what you’re intimately curious about may be. And for that, it will always be a personal battle. No shortcuts there.

However, it’s nice to know that although it will never get easier, it will always be worth it.

 

Stay Positive & Keep Wondering Until You’re Inspired (And Ultimately Focused)

Photo credit

People die standing still. Brands die standing still. Ideas die standing still.

Movement is essential, but movement with purpose is what I mean when I talk about being a shark in the marketing world: sharks die unless they keep moving forward. To move forward, there has to be purpose.

Think of it like practice. There’s practice, and then there’s perfect practice.

There’s movement, and then there’s movement with purpose.

While marketers and leaders and entrepreneurs are getting better at never standing still, there’s still a tendency to move reactively. A complaint gets filed, you rush to resolve it without thinking of the purpose. If your purpose is to grow, to focus on the best of the best clients, then maybe movement to resolve the complaint isn’t the right answer, maybe movement to wish them good luck in finding a brand they love is the right movement, cut your losses.

Movement with purpose requires us to ask the tough questions.

Why are we entering a new social platform?

Why are we creating unified and brand-labelled images?

Why are we catering to this individual?

Why are we choosing to pitch to this retail business now?

 

Stay Positive & What If Everything Works Out Today? Then What? Why?

Photo credit