Go ahead. Finish that statement. Just let me know how it ends for you.
Is it “…generating leads”? Or “…reaching out to your audience and motivating them to buy”? How about “…engaging with your audience”? And hopefully not “…a dedicated service provider for sales”?
Now, at the risk of sounding like an old man frustrated by changing times, I’m going to tell you what I’ve learned over the years.
Marketing is more than promotion.
As a matter of fact, if you’re asking your marketing team to focus on generating more ‘leads’, and you’re hiring people that can tweak and generate more people to submit a completed web form and download a paper or follow your Facebook Page…you’re missing the boat.
First, if your marketing team is focused on digital, they tend to be focused on how to create a landing page or an ad for Adwords or Facebook or wherever. They tend to focus on getting the email nurturing campaign up and running efficiently They might test if the large green button delivers more results than the large blue button. Or that White Paper B generates more “leads” than White Paper C.
But the also tend not to know a whole helluva lot about your audience. The segments within the universe that are really your best customers. The needs and wants, expectations and perceptions they have. Where they go for information and what information they need to see before they trust you and decide to engage with your further.
They also tend not to know much about your competition. What their offerings are and what their pricing strategy is or how they get their products and services into the hands of the buyer and user.
They tend not to know too much about your market either. What the impact on business is thanks to political activities, the economy, shifts in society and new tech.
And the reason this is important is because they are creating the messaging and offers that are pushed out through those digital channels. So when they don’t understand the market, competition or audience they tend to craft some pretty generic messages and offers.
Marketing is…
A successful marketer is thinking about the customer, not mobile. Or to be more precise, the successful marketer is thinking about how the customer uses mobile and if mobile offers an opportunity to reach out and deliver a unique, compelling offer.
A successful marketer is thinking about the customer so that the messages and offers are strong, relevant, valuable, appropriate. And they are thinking about where the customer is going to go for that information so that information is there, waiting for them.
A successful marketer is thinking about the customer, the competition and the market because someone has to identify opportunities that will help the organization meet, if not exceed their goals for the next 1 to 5 years.
