Marketing is for Everyone

Many people think that marketers are the only ones who can market. You have to know all the insider terms, tech and perceived complexity that comes with the field. Click funnels, landing pages, automations - there is so much to learn and tackle. Add to that the ever shifting landscape of tools, world events and customer behavior and it can seem overwhelming.

Then there are people who have just associated marketing with the wrong idea, mixing up poor sales tactics with marketing and lumping all of their negative experiences under the sun into one bad group called marketing. These people want nothing to do with marketing.

There is another group of people who think marketing is advertisement, PR, direct mail, the phonebook(you would be surprised) or brochures. Their skills do not lie in any one of those areas, so they write marketing off as something they do not have skill with. They are not skilled at marketing so they should not do it.

The thing is - anyone can be a marketer. You dont get a special marketing card that allows you to start. Marketing is for everyone and does not need to be complicated. So where can you start?

Identify your target customer

A good place to start is to identify your target customer. Who exactly do you serve? What does their day look like? What struggles do they have? What is the most difficult thing about their work that you can solve for them?

Most businesses do not know with confidence who they serve. Broad strokes are a good place to start, but the more you can narrow down into the exact problem someone is having, and the context around that, the better results you will experience.

Make sure your customers know you exist

Ask yourself this - do your people know what you do? Do they know that you exist? Do they know your businesses serves their type of industry, or solves their problem? You could have the best possible solution to a specific problem, but if no one knows who you are - it does not make a difference.

Picture a desert. Your company is a welcome oasis - providing fresh water, shade, rest and those damn delicious fruity drinks with little umbrellas. Your customers are wandering around this desert. They have no clue that a fresh drink and shade is waiting just beyond that next dune.

Figure out how to connect with them. Blogging, video, podcasts - there are so many ways you can connect. Dont focus on perfectionism, just start. Commit to doing something long enough to truly evaluate if that channel is working or not. If it is not, make a shift and try something else.

Know where your customers are in the buyers journey

Alright, you know who your ideal customer is and they know who you are. Where in the buyers journey are your prospects? Do they know they have a problem? Are they problem aware, and aware of you - but you have not built enough trust to bridge the gap and start a conversation? Typical a buyers journey consists of three phases: awareness, consideration, and decision. Depending on where your customers are on this journey you can tailor your marketing efforts to that phase.

Awareness phase: make it really clear how you can help solve the problem they have. Put together examples, case studies videos - whatever you need. Write about the problem they have.

Consideration: prospects are trying to figure out if your product is the best fit. Talk about different angles of the problem and how you address it. Be okay saying you are not a fit. Make an unbiased competitor analysis and present the information in a way that they can make the decision for themselves.

Decision: prospects are choosing between you or someone else. Talk about some of the questions they have. Go through their fears, validate them and answer them.

Get started

Outlined above are three steps you can take to start your marketing efforts today. Marketing does not need to be complicated. In fact, the more simple you get, the better results you will have. Marketing is for everyone. Your sales team, your development team, your CEO. Some of the best startup blogs I have read are written by everyone on the team - not just the marketing department.