I started my marketing career exactly 20 years ago. Back then, I had a cell phone, but it was large and all it did was make phone calls. Marketing communications were just beginning to use eMail and “social” is what happened at live events. Over the years, technologies have been introduced at a rapid pace and they have been adopted with various levels of success. Data is now a key element of any marketing strategy.
Yet, with the rapid pace of data and technology, I have learned over the years that there are some core marketing principles that stand the test of time. By following these ten marketing tips you will be guided to the right technology and data solutions to meet your goals and objectives.
1. Be Empathetic
Your marketing starts with your customers. Seek to understand their lives, their needs, and their goals. If you are empathetic to the problems and challenges your customers face, you are better able to plan the best solutions for them. While this may drive your product development, also consider how your customers use technology. If they don’t listen to podcasts or aren’t on Facebook, it’s OK to remove those channels from your marketing mix. Just because you can market through a channel it doesn’t mean you should. There are thousands of choices out there, always let your customers guide you to the right ones.
2. Be Relevant
Focus on what your customer wants to hear, not what you want to say. Over the years, I’ve seen too many teams start with the message they want to send to a customer – “we need to communicate this because it’s a great new feature”. Customers won’t care about the feature itself, what they will care about is how that feature will make their lives better. Focus the communication on how it solves a challenge for a customer, not the technical specification of how it works.
3. Be Bold
Stand for something. As teams want to be relevant to all customers, they risk being bland and attracting few customers along the way. Determine the values and beliefs of your brand and seek out those customers who hold the same values. It’s much more effective to connect deeply with a small audience than to have loose connections with many. Another risk of not clearly communicating what you stand for is that if you don’t define what you stand for, customers will.
4. Be Consistent
Everything you choose to do, no matter the channel or format, will communicate a message. Ensuring consistency in design, message, and tone is key. This way, anywhere your current and target customers come into contact with your content they begin to recognize immediately it is from you. Over time, it’s hard to keep the consistency – you get bored with the direction. Keep in mind, you see the materials ALL the time….your customers do not. Resist the urge to make big changes.
5. Be Succinct
To make a point…this should be short! We often have a LOT to say about our brand, product, or company. Resist the urge.
6. Be Helpful
When customers are out there looking for help, make it a priority to be there for them – answer the phone, the email, the Facebook post, or whatever other way they reach out. Demonstrating quickly that their question is important to you goes a long way in developing trust and loyalty. If you start to see consistent questions coming in about your product/service – how to use or where to get more information – develop content that addresses the questions and make it easy for customers to find on their own in the future.
7. Be Grateful
You wouldn’t be where you are without the customers who have supported you along the way. Always be grateful and ensure they know that their business is your number one priority. While a company always needs to look at growing their customer base, I have seen too many under-appreciate the customers they already have. Treat current customers well and they will become another marketing channel on your behalf – spreading word of mouth to their family, colleagues and friends.
8. Be Engaged
Make your brand an interaction, not a one-way street. There are so many ways to get out and engage with your customers, pick the ones that work the best for you and for them. Get out there, respond to comments, start a conversation or share relevant content from other sources. No matter how far technology goes in the future, creating a sense of community with those who want a relationship with your brand should always be a priority.
9. Be Proud
I’m guessing that you wouldn’t be working on the brand you are if you didn’t believe in the product/service, the mission of the brand, and the values of the company. This pride in the company or brand can, and should, come through in everything you do. Go beyond the marketing plan and, as an employee, talk about the brand to your family, friends and community. You always need to disclose your relationship, but don’t shy away from your pride in the company, product or service.
10. Be Creative
I moved “be creative” up and down the order of these top 10 and finally decided that this is the most important principle to end on. Over time, it becomes comfortable to implement techniques that have been successful for you in the past – constantly evolving the tried and true. While this can be valuable, I believe it’s equally important to try new things. The fear of failure tends to be what holds new techniques back. You need to get over that one. Leap. Explore. Not everything will work and that’s ok, but if you don’t try, you will never find new ways to make the other nine principles come alive.
Summary
No matter how quickly and ever changing the technology and data landscape may become in the years to come, I believe that another 20 years from now the principles above will continue to be relevant. I also think these tips can be as relevant to growing your personal brand as they are to a company brand. Think of them through that lens and see what you think.
When you consider marketing principles that have stood the test of time, what comes to mind for you? Please share your thoughts in the comments.