On the one hand, marketing in the 21st century may be easier than ever before. On the other hand, effective marketing still remains just as challenging as ever. The tools may change, but the challenge remains the same. While marketing jobs are plentiful, it still takes a good deal of effort to stand out from the crowd. Whether you want to get ahead in your company or branch out on your own, here are 7 pro tips for marketers to help you excel.
No matter what industry you are in, the world is constantly changing and evolving. If you want to keep up, you have to be constantly learning. Getting a marketing degree in and of itself is easier than ever thanks to online learning, but your education shouldn't end with a degree. Online courses also allow you to keep up with current trends and even next gen tools without investing a fortune.
Analytics are how you will know what is working and what is not. But analytics are just numbers which have to be interpreted appropriately to make proper changes. Think of it like fine-tuning an engine. A diagnostic tool can tell you what isn't working properly, but you have to understand how the entire engine works to bring the thing that isn't working into alignment. Getting powerful analytics is easy, understanding them and using them properly is a whole other matter.
These days, almost anyone can do their own social media and online marketing. Once again, however, marketing and effective marketing are two different things. In order to get clients, you have to convince them that you know more than they do without making them feel stupid. One of the best ways to do this is simply to get results - every time. Competence breeds confidence.
In the marketing business, you are your first and foremost product. If you can't market yourself well, you probably won't inspire a lot of confidence in either your boss or your clients that you can market their products well. Keep in mind, however, that in this area as in all others, sales and marketing are two different things. Marketing yourself well doesn't mean you have to sell yourself.
Listening is one of the most powerful tools of any effective marketer. Developing effective marketing strategies involves listening to your client, listening to consumers and even listening to others in your industry. Truly effective marketing strategies will always be in some ways revolutionary and in some ways tried-and-true. In order to develop them, however, you need to gain input from a wide variety of sources. Listening is how you do that.
Marketing is the study of what moves people from being an observer to a consumer. Creating a great commercial can get consumers to watch it again and again as well as like and share it on social media. It doesn't necessarily move them to actually buy a product, however. The ultimate goal of all marketing is to turn viewers into consumers, but in order to do that, you have to understand what drives and motivates them in the first place.
One thing to understand about people is that what draws in one group will generally drive another away. Almost any time you have a rise in one metric, you will have a drop in another. Music is an excellent example of this. Early in Taylor Swift's career, she catered to her own demographic, because it was what she understood. She churned out teen pop that teenagers just couldn't get enough of, but which largely revolted their parents. While parents may have loved Swift's squeaky clean image, they didn't much like her music. Fast forward a decade and as Swift developed personally, so did her music, gaining her a broader fan base. Conversely, however, she lost many of the pre-pubescent teen fans that she built her career on. The dichotomy of marketing is that you can't please everyone, so don't even try.
Effective marketing is a science. Like all sciences, the knowledge base is constantly expanding and evolving, which means to be an effective marketer, you have to constantly be learning, expanding, evolving and changing as well. Conversely, however, there are aspects and elements to human nature that marketers can tap into that will never change. Poor marketers seek to manipulate consumers, effective marketers are always learning how to build and establish better connection between brands and their audiences. Like all tools, marketing tools can be used to help or to harm. Your ultimate results will all depend on how you use your tools.
