Your Best Marketing Advice

What’s your best marketing advice?

That’s what I asked you in a previous edition of Serial Marketer Weekly, and dozens of you took the time to respond.

It doesn’t hurt that there was an added incentive, with a $CMO reward that delivered the first such bounty of its kind. Follow that page to learn about new bounties.

Below is a round-up of advice, often abridged (sorry) to accommodate as many respondents as possible (not sorry) and possibly copy-edited (you’re welcome). They’re shared in the order received.

There are so many gems here; we’ll have to do more of these. If you think of other good questions for such interactive columns, let me know. And if you want to fund a bounty yourself (no cost beyond the $CMO coins you pass through to the respondents), reach out to me so we can explore running others.

On to the best advice from you, the reader (well, probably not you, but it’s possible):

“Never stop self-promoting. Clients want to work with people who are successful and who are proud of their accomplishments. It can be difficult to talk about yourself, or seem a bit braggadocious, but remember that we are in the business of getting attention, and if you cannot generate excitement for your own brand, why would anyone trust you with theirs?”
Layne Harris

“When you are first starting or launching a new product, simplify and STAY CONSISTENT with your message.”
Zachary Rozga

“Cut the fat: It’s not the 80/20 rule, but more like ‘rank stack the campaigns.’ I do this multiple times– by spend, by conversion, by engagement, etc. Prune the stuff which is either too expensive, not converting enough, or where the engagement rate is so low that the ad is not resonating.”
Matthew Silverman

“The best – and most concise – marketing advice I ever got was from Seth Godin, who famously said, ‘You can’t just tell people what you want to tell them. You have to tell them what they want to know.’ That can be unwrapped in so many layers, but basically it means listening deeply to the conversation before jumping in with your ‘message points.’ Before jumping into any marketing campaign, research, research, research. It’s always time well spent.”
B.L. Ochman

“Market the marketing. Don’t assume everyone knows what the marketing team is doing internally. It’s important to share the content being created (along with how to use it, for whom, when), campaigns being run, and how everyone in the company can augment these efforts. Too often marketing efforts can remain in an internal silo and not take advantage of the entire team’s network.
David Markowitz

“I was a stressed-out fool early in my PR career. I’d just arrived in a new country (Australia), and was getting into a new industry (tech). I wanted to impress, and was legitimately losing sleep over all the things I couldn’t get done each day. I confessed to my boss that I was not coping. And he asked me three questions: 1. Are your clients happy? Yes. 2. Is your boss happy? I looked at him. He nodded. 3. Then what are you worried about? I paused. He was right. Sometimes, good enough is really good enough.”
Jeremy Woolf

“Marketing isn’t sales; trying to tell a consumer to buy your product is akin to telling a teenager to clean/tidy their room. You need to incentivize and influence a change in behavior by proving positive outcomes. And use all of your marketing budget because the finance team will reallocate those resources to another department if you don’t, and reduce your budget the following year.”
Philip Robertson

“The best advice I’ve received sounds obvious, but is rarely practiced: You need to see the product and experiencing the purchase journey as if you were an average consumer. That is, if your product is sitting on a retail shelf, go to that retailer and see what the experience is like. If it’s a car, go to a dealership and see what that experience is like. It’s amazing how many brand and agency leaders only experience what they work on through screens and presentation decks. Doing a simple ethnography through the eyes of actual consumers goes a very very long way.”
Michael Miraflor

“Identify the biggest barrier to your target taking the behavior you want, then deliver a strong argument that overcomes it.”
Nancy Harhut

“Provide your customers with a reason to talk about your product. I found that completely wowing them with customer support does exactly that, as no one expects good support anymore. In our company, everyone from the CEO down to junior engineers tries to reply to incoming support questions within minutes. This has gained us not only lots of 5-star reviews but also led to winning huge accounts based on personal recommendations. As an added side benefit, the leadership team will get valuable customer feedback. Read more here.”
Boris Pfeiffer, Riddle

“Here’s how to improve briefs, or even better, co-create clients’ briefs. Ask simple questions to start with: 1) Who’s your audience and what problem of your audience are you solving? 2) Have you validated it / do you keep validating if your solution / service / product still solves their problems? The first question 9 out of 10 times triggers tons of good discussions in order to improve product/service offerings as well as (re-)defining target audiences.”
Mark Mansveld

“Understanding your audience is critical. You can only close a sale by understanding and eliminating purchase doubts. If you can’t overcome issues in the consumer’s mind, your marketing won’t be as effective.
Michael La Kier

“The best marketing advice/lesson I received was by taking a class in Stage Directing: It ties back to having a North Star. When directing a play, you start with the final moment in mind – the moment the curtain closes and the lights come back on. What is the feeling, the emotion you want the audience to be experiencing at that moment? You need to know that, and then every single scene in the play needs to be moving things toward that moment. If it doesn’t, if it’s extraneous. I look at marketing and branding the same way.”-
Jeff Sass

“Don’t just say what’s great about your idea or your pitch. Make sure to talk about the bad things that can happen if they don’t choose you. There have to be consequences for inaction, or there’s no reason to act.”
Mark Avnet

“When trying to market something to someone, always make sure they first understand and buy into the WHY. This is very much the message made popular by Simon Sinek in his TED talk, which I paraphrase below, called Start With Why. It is also often the answer to why some companies and/or people with less funding/resources end up punching way above their weight! This mindset can be helpful in most interactions with people, not just around marketing products.”
Jeff Katz

“People don’t buy things, they buy for a feeling.”
Justin Finkelstein

“I can’t remember if it was a business school professor or a fellow marketer who said, ‘As marketers, our job isn’t to get everyone to believe us. It’s to give the right people something to believe in.’ And something else I’ve always believed in, and I think I can take credit for this myself: ‘If you’ve never met your customer, or talked to them yourself, you really don’t know who they are.’”
Faisal Laljee

“Play more games and participate in their communities so you can learn what motivates people and keeps them engaged. With this knowledge, you’ll be much better off when you’ll want to start building a community around your product. It doesn’t matter if it’s B2B, B2C, D2C — you’re always marketing to people, and people want to be a part of communities that stimulate them and make them feel like they belong.”
Ayokunle Odukomaiya

“An ounce of execution is worth a pound of planning.”
John Koetsier

“Do not be afraid to take chances and keep asking questions. Most importantly, take one step at a time and then keep building on that.”
Kenneth Simon

“‘We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.’ – Epictetus. Epictetus taught that philosophy is a way of life and not just a theoretical discipline. Marketing is about creating customers by listening to them so that you may persuade them.”
Larry Smith

“’Listen to the market.’” My coach told me this a few years ago and she couldn’t have been more right. As marketers we’re always trying to project what we think people need onto them, but if you listen, your audience will tell you what they need from you.
Danielle Hughes

“When I first was starting out in Sports Marketing, I read a book by Jon Spoelstra called How to Sell Every Seat in the House about ticket sales. The premise was how much easier it was to renew a season ticket holder than to find a new one. As such, he focused on the now ubiquitous ‘surprise and delight’ mentality by creating opportunities for value added experiences, gifts, etc. While he wrote specifically from the sports ticket angle, the prevailing strategy has always been top-of-mind regardless of where my career has taken me.”
Paul Robinson

Thanks for your advice. There is so much to take to heart.

I’m taking next week off to enjoy some vacation time with my daughter. See you in a couple of weeks. Have a great rest of your summer, and let me know any ideas for how this newsletter or I can be a better resource for you.

David

————————————————–
OFFICIAL UPDATES
————————————————–

• We have a new Bounty on Bonfire. Please take this one-question survey to share feedback on the best timing for virtual events this fall and beyond, and earn a $CMO coin as a token of thanks.
• Reminder: Serial Marketers is partnering with Esports Insider for ESI Digital Summer. Two of our members, Zachary Rozga and Justin Stefanovic, will be speaking. You can use the code SERIALMARKETERS10 for 10% off your ticket.
• Check out the recent episode of Founders Live Podcast, where David talked with Nick Hughes about building purposeful communities.