I wanted to share a talk that I presented to my fellow Entrepreneurs’ Organization Atlanta chapter members on the topic of elevating sales and marketing. In my talk, I share a personal experience that transformed the way I taught marketing and created a path to further share my passion for helping great leaders and great companies have a happier, healthier, and wealthier relationship with marketing. It’s a short talk (kind of a TED Talk format) that you can watch below.
I begin by sharing the defining experience that got me on this path. I was in my UC Berkeley classroom. It was the second to last class of one of my many digital marketing classes. Instead of excitement to put their education into practice, I saw nothing but stressed and overwhelmed faces. The students had been so positive up until this point, yet here they were, hitting a wall the week before final projects were due. I knew I had to stop their stress and move them into a mindset for success and I knew just how to get them there.
We had to start by redefining marketing.
I did a quick Google search on “definition of marketing” and a definition that still comes up today about “the act of pushing and promoting products or services” came up. This old-school marketing approach—promote, advertise, sell, sell, sell—was bound to stress out and repel anyone. I thought back to all of my work over the years: From my former life as a teacher to my 30+ year career in sales and marketing, and now running a long-time marketing agency. What keeps great people and great companies from having great marketing isn’t about having enough money.
Success is often rooted simply in the way that we think about and approach marketing.
Thanks to the power of the web, the elitism of marketing is gone and any organization – large, small, for-profit or non-profit, new or old, can have tremendous success. But first, we have to have a happier and healthier relationship with marketing – it begins by redefining marketing.
I introduced my class to the concept of markeding. Stay with me, it’s not a typo! It’s the mashup of the words marketing + education. Instead of the old-school, nearsighted push/promote approach, thinking simply about what you want to help your audience understand and then serving them with great content gets you on a sustainable path. Instead of thinking about marketing as a sales-y approach, approach marketing as being of service. Educating and supporting your audience is everything. When I asked students to share what they wanted their ideal customers to understand, answers flowed and those answers translated into content that needed to be created or optimized throughout their marketing – on the website, emails, ads, social media posts, and more.
Speaking of content, experts in the industry say that “content is king”. Authorities in the industry understand that content is the whole entire kingdom. Content is your marketing super ingredient to brand build and boost business.
Ask yourself these two simple questions: Who are your ideal customers, and what do you need to help your audience understand?
In my talk, I shared the story of a past client who worked for a winery, and who came to Web Marketing Therapy for marketing optimization. They weren’t sure if they were using their time and money wisely. We started by clarifying who their ideal audience was. They wanted to market to high-net-worth foodies, travelers, and people who loved organic wine. And then we asked, what they wanted to help their audience to understand. We learned that the founders, who had a background in hospitality, fell in love with organic wine practices while studying winemaking in Europe, and this was the factor that inspired them to launch their winery. After we got clear on their value and their values, we got started reviewing their marketing assets.
Upon reviewing their website, we noticed the organic seal was hidden at the bottom of the homepage. The first rule of the homepage is that it needs to immediately say who you are, what you do, and who you serve. So we suggested bringing clarity about their organic wine front and center to make clear what they stood for. We also looked at their gorgeous email newsletter, which had all this great content—beautiful photography of the wine, a monthly personal letter from the founder, and recipes—but low open rates. While the content was great, the majority of people receiving it weren’t reading it! Instead of investing in brand-new strategies, we recommended repurposing the content they already had: shaping up their website, and using the stunning images and recipes from the newsletter to create more engaging content on a blog and on social media.
Education Is Your Marketing Guiding Light
When education is your guiding light, and you focus on relevant, useful content directed to the right audience, you can find great success.
Anytime you feel stressed out about marketing, take a chill pill — remember that you don’t have to do it all yourself. You can do what you do best, and hire others to do the rest. Admitting you need help is the first step. And remember it’s a long game. Great service, usability, and credibility will make strong, lasting connections with clients.
Just as education becomes your new guiding light, remember that as you’re hiring help—employees, contractors, vendors—make sure that the folks you are engaging are also educating you.
Click here to watch my full video.