‘’There are no great marketers !
There are no marketers who
understand what we want!
There here is no one who can execute our
marketing strategy.’’
I’ve heard these many times from many
people I’ve met across borders. Finding a good marketer, or the right marketer
for your company or product is a challenge. Especially with social media,
mobile apps, free design templates coming into play, everyone is a marketer. There
are no barriers to become a marketer with so many digital marketing
certificates to complete the checklist. When every Tom, Dick and Harry knows marketing,
it becomes a struggle to get the right pitch across because everyone in the
leadership team or product team has seen something ‘cool’ somewhere online and they
insist that your product has the same pitch. In this confused digitally savvy
era, finding a real marketer who ‘gets you’ could be challenging. Why? Because
a majority of the gen-Z marketers will not argue with the ‘wanna be marketers’
in your organisation, they might finally settle to execute the ‘cool’ pitch, or
just do it as a job, to take their paycheck home. This is where you define your
boundaries in finding a good one, you find one with a passion.
Passionate.
This doesn’t mean being
passionate about the job only, it means being passionate about every single
thing that he or she lives for. Family, job, colleagues, hobbies, everything.
Only someone passionate can create something within the heart, be connected
with both brain and heart. Yes, thinking from the heart is very important in
marketing, because at the end of the day your pitch is for humans. It is for
real people, and they feel emotions and emotions play a big role in relating to
a product or service no matter how tech savvy or innovative it is.
Tip – If you are head-hunting or recruiting, check their social
media profiles other than LinkedIN. See how passionate they are about things on
a day today basis. Ask random questions at an interview, ask what their
favourite TV show is. If you watch it too, ask about a character in it. Their
answers and insights might surprise you and give you a better insight about the
person.
Empathetic and an active listener.
Something I’ve personally tried
hard to develop over the years, these two traits could be interlinked or
connected. Not everyone can give a good brief neither everyone can give
constructive feedback, it is important that your core marketing person listens
actively, not just listen to defend their pitch but to listen carefully on what
rest of the team has to say. If the CEO thinks the copy is bad, it probably is,
they need to understand why he thinks it is bad. It is important they know how
to read between the lines, and be an empathetic communicator.
Tip – As a practice, if you don’t like the artwork and don’t understand
to explain why, always ask questions. This would make you understand it better
and make them understand you better. Always narrate a scenario at an interview,
ask them to give you a swift response as to what they do. You will understand
the quick thinking and strategy through discussions like this.
Similar understanding and ‘your kinda’ taste
Understanding your buyer persona, the brand voice, tone and
pitch is important.
‘This doesn’t look classy’, ‘This looks very ……
says something extremely racist’’’ are some offhand comments that gets thrown
at a marketing team on a daily basis. Your key communicator has to have a deep
sense of understanding of your buyer persona, have your kinda taste, he or she
should be able to read your mind, know exactly what you want to say in a media
release. S/he has to be on your same level of thinking. We all come from
different schools, backgrounds, our different acquired tastes and colour
pallets, what you think is right may not be right at all. But what would help you
is to have someone who understands your thinking so it makes everyone’s job
easy in a marketing campaign or launch.
Tip – At an interview, get them
to do a media release or an elevator pitch for you. Get them to narrate a story
board of your dream event, see if you tick. Chemistry is very important here.
Marketing people are a different
breed, if they know what is trending in Netflix or YouTube, be happy, that
means that they are passionate and interested in their industry. Find someone who
speaks the same language (not literally), who can read your mind, know your
buyer persona’ in and out, after all compatibility is key.
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