An important reminder by Bernadette Jiwa.
If you want to be listened, begin with listening.
If you want to be heard, begin with hearing.
If you want to lead, begin with opening to the people you want to lead.
If you want to sell something, begin with understanding the people you want to sell to.
It is that easy.
Content marketing cannot just be an excuse to collect an email address.
I give you my contact because I am interested in one piece of your content. You follow up to ask if I enjoyed it, and then you start sending out regular emails I have not asked for, on topics that barely touch on my initial interest, widening the range as time goes by. And the bottom line of each of these communication is the exhortation: “buy!”.
This is not how it’s supposed to work. This is not how it’s supposed to be effective.
It’s not, because you are breaking an early relationship based on trust. I have trusted you with my contact, and you have trusted me with your piece of content. And then, what? How would you treat a human being in a face-to-face interaction, after the initial exchange of trust?
Perhaps, asking them what their interests are. Sending them something similar to what made them give you trust, and carefully see if it works. Answering their questions if they have any. Politely enquiring on what can be done to improve the relationship.
And at some point, draw the line and quit.
There must be a moment, a time, when you’ve tried enough. A moment when it’s clear it was just a temporary exchange more than a real interest. A time when sending one additional email is more damaging than not sending it.
In a world in which everything is free (only in monetary terms), we are not used to design the “quit” stage. And yet, one of the most remarkable marketing email I remember is the one of a company who did.
What does a book from the 80s have to teach to marketers today?
Let’s see.
Advertising is, for the most part, unwanted and unliked. In some cases, advertising is thoroughly detested.
[…]
In general, the mind accepts only that which matches prior knowledge or experience. Millions of dollars have been wasted trying to change minds with advertising. Once a mind is made up, it’s almost impossible to change it. Certainly not with a weak force like advertising.
[…]
as the effectiveness of advertising goes down, the use of it goes up. Not just in volume, but in the number of users.
These are some of the aspects Ries and Trout start from in their book, Positioning: how to be seen and heard in the overcrowded marketplace. And they bear quite incredible similarities to the environment marketers operate in nowadays. Almost 40 years after the book was written.
The solution to this mix of sensory overload and advertising inefficacy is positioning, the process that leads (better, should lead) companies to identify a space in the prospect’s mind and leverage it for growth and success. Contrary to common shared belief, indeed, growth and success are not in the product and its features, they are in how the audience and particularly your prospects remember and talk about you.
Not surprisingly, Ries and Trout share quite many examples of companies who did positioning right and companies who did it wrong (back in the Seventies and Eighties), and perhaps the more interesting examples are the ones the authors dedicate a full chapter each in the second half of the book. Some commonalities.
Positioning is one of those books that anybody who starts a career in marketing should read and keep close throughout their careers. It really is too easy to forget about the importance of everything that is not the product/service you are offering (competitors, environment, audience, etc.) and fall in love with words and messages that mean literally nothing to the people you seek to serve.
This is the classic mistake made by the leader. The illusion that the power of the product is derived from the power of the organization. It’s just the reverse. The power of the organization is derived from the power of the product, the position that the product owns in the prospect’s mind.
Reading this reminded me of the time I found a job ad for Social Media Manager listing 1,000 (or was it 10,000) friends on Facebook as a requisite to apply.
We are easily mislead by what is not important, and so we believe that doing Marketing on social media is about metrics that are as much visibile as they are insignificant. And of course, managers and executives are then disappointed when they come to this very realization.
Continue focusing on bringing consistent value to your audience where they are, and stay clear of distraction-metrics. Long-term success will be your reward.
Your actions will have a much higher impact if they fit in a story you live every day.
Your feedback will be taken more seriously if it’s part of a more general attempt to genuinely help move the situation forward.
Your survey will get a better response rate if it’s framed in an ongoing effort to better understand and serve.
Your marketing will be more effective if it’s part of a strategy that aims at generating value for the prospect at every step of their journey.
Your message might actually be heard if it’s the bit of a story your audience has been waiting for and cannot do without.
Of course, for all of this to be possible, you need to spend a considerable amount of time tryin to understand the other(s).
The alternative, though, is to share your opinion every time you do not get things your way, to send out a survey without having set the stage for it in the months before, to run campaign after campaign tweaking for conversion, to forge the message with what we have in mind.
It happens every day, almost everywhere. And it drives us crazy when it is done to us.
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