Creative Insights

Marketing is about to get competitive and automated.

As we enter 2020, the strategies we employ toward those we serve will either help us stand out or leave us sinking into marginalized mediocrity.

What can you and your business do this year to stand out, sell better and make more impact? How can you make this your best year ever?

In this post, we’ll cover three important movements you should make in 2020 to ensure you come out on top.

Strategy 1: Relentlessly Ignore the New Noise

There’s always a flood of articles outlining what you must do for the new year. These posts will always be arduous regurgitations on whatever the trends are at the time.

Chasing trends isn’t a path to success.

Marketing isn’t about blending in and doing what your competitors are doing. It’s about doing what your audience needs from you, regardless of what has your competitors’ attention.

Avoid Linear Tactics

If the trends say you should use Facebook Messenger bots but your audience isn’t on Facebook, don’t use Facebook Messenger bots.

If your audience prefers receiving physical mail and your competitors are obsessed with sending emails, where do you think your opportunity lies?

Focus On Communication

As every year rolls by, I wonder if anyone will add the importance of good communication to their to-do list.

The truth is, they never do.

Utilizing “innovative new solutions” with the same, weak messaging your competitors are using holds you in mediocrity. What if you took an existing effective channel and improved your messaging skills? Do you think that would make it more effective?

A new marketing toy seems to arise every week. As appealing as they may seem, the trick is to ignore the noise and invest in things that last. Leave the freneticism to your competition.

Strategy 2: It’s Still About Your Story and Offer

“Storytelling is the number one way to build your brand”
– Dave Asprey, Founder of Bulletproof Coffee

If you tell the best story and follow it up with the best offer, why would anyone choose someone else to support them? Here are two truths that reinforce this:

The Best Story Wins

If you’re able to move audience members away from their pain and toward their goals in a straighter line than your competitors, why would that audience choose an unclear, convoluted alternative?

Once you’re able to answer these questions critically, wrap the value you bring to the marketplace in a narrative your audience resonates with. This will equip you with what our clients refer to as:

“A siren-call that speaks to the hearts of minds of those we wish to serve.”

Competitors Have Mere Tricks

When you don’t have a narrative to deliver your message or an offer that people can’t refuse, what is one left to do?

Conventional “marketing” conversations ensue as a result of this question.

Applying ‘spin’ to create interest, coercive copy and flash sales are what we’re reduced to when we’re without something people can want and relate to.

Leave the tricks to your competitors and focus your efforts on creating a real connection with those you wish to serve.

Strategy 3: Go Personal

Each time we pass through the Christmas season, we become intimately familiar with both the giving and receiving of gifts.

The same processes happen each year:

Buying something you think the recipient will really appreciate or, receiving something thoughtful from someone who thought of you.

What makes these traditions special is how they make the individuals feel when proper thought is implemented.

How often do you go personal with those you wish to serve?

I’m Not an “Audience”

We want to be acknowledged when we talk to people, whether it’s a business that can help us or an old friend.

We want them to know where we’re going and how to get there. We aren’t just an “audience”, but individuals.

The more you make your message hyper-relevant to each person, the more each person will want to have a conversation with you.

I Like Feeling Special, Too

Hand-written letters don’t have measurable ROI. Personal videos aren’t particularly scalable. However, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t consider them.

We’re humans. Not robots. We choose what will help us move forward, but we also choose what we like – what we have a connection with.

You can’t really A/B test ‘like’.

The pursuit of automation and optimization often entices companies to abandon the idea of going personal. However, their loss can be your gain: people want you to care, so use the available channels to show that you do.

Your 2020 Marketing Strategies Wrapped Up

Just like every other year, there will be many 2020 strategy posts making their way online.

Resist turning them into a to-do list.

The frenetic pursuit of mastering every new piece of whiz-bang marketing undermines your power to increase your connection, care, and service in the lives of those you’d like to serve.

Which sounds more effective to you?

The online marketing industry is a mess.

Somewhere along the way, we as marketers stopped looking at the visitor, at what they’re searching for, which has caused a serious amount of problems for marketers and business owners.

Here, we’re going to cover what WORKS in marketing right now.

This is not going to be a post about hacks or tricks or techniques that supposedly work for every market/ industry/ sector; there are enough post like that on the internet already.

So, in this post we’re going to cover three big roadblocks in online marketing that you might be falling victim to, and how to remedy those so that your company’s marketing efforts will move closer toward its full potential.

Most companies who ask about “what works in marketing” are in similar positions; any of these sound true for you?

• They’ve tried ‘everything’ in marketing, but struggle to create the results they’re hoping for.
• They’ve experimented with many advertising channels, but so far have achieved little-to-no yield from most of them.
• Any growth they’ve managed to create has paled in comparison to their expectations.

If you can relate to any of these situations, let’s put each one to rest, in order.

The first marketing roadblock: “trying everything”

We don’t listen.

We’re told it’s important when we’re young. In school. At our first job. In marriage. That we have two ears and one mouth for a reason.

But when it comes to marketing, it all goes out the window. We think it’s by accident. It isn’t.

The truth is, we like the sound of our own voices. We like the features in our products. We like to be sure others understood how great our work is. If we keep talking, we think we have more chances of being heard. If we use more words, perhaps more of them will land.

Marketers don’t learn this lesson easily.

No wonder everyone’s saying marketing is getting harder.

In this post we’re going to cover some examples of where, as marketers, we think we’re listening, but aren’t. Then we’re going to cover some ways we can really listen, and how doing so will transform the way our marketing performs.

I’m talking to you, difference-maker.

Over the past few weeks, my team and I have been reviewing a ton of websites.

Through this process, we came across something funny:

Hands up if you’ve ever traded your email address for a free ebook, whitepaper or super-top-secret-tip.

Most of you, I suspect.

Now, leave your hand up if the thing you received gave you what you wanted without trying to sell you a $47 ‘upgrade’ to actually get to what you thought you were getting in the first place.

A lot of ‘helpful’ content online feels a bit slimy. Titles that are too good to be true, with content that gets your attention but never delivers until you register for some expensive ’thing’. Which also happens to hold back on the real content until you buy yet another ‘thing’.

Here are three things you must do to make sure your content doesn’t fall into this category.

Which of these 7 are you falling short on?

As a business owner of any kind, you probably know how important it is to keep thinking about your customers. You do want to keep those customers, after all, right?

There are some tell-tale ways of spotting whether businesses are really thinking about their customers or not. There’s a lot of obvious ways to tell, but we won’t be covering any of those here. We’re going deeper.

So, business owner: be honest with yourself as you read through these. Are you doing all of these 7 examples?