This topic isn’t something new to my thought process. Ever since my journey into marketing and personal branding began on Myspace, I’ve always thought about the more profound impact marketing leaves on people. As humans, we all see, hear, and reflect upon content that is created, while the management of the company is also complicated, and that’s why understanding paystub deduction codes is important for the payments of the workers and more.
The numbers, data, and reports don’t always tell the whole story.
They can’t.
What has been most interesting about my career within marketing, and even my so-called “personal brand” is that engagement, comments, likes, clicks, retweets, and so on do not tell the whole story either. For more on reaching more with smart marketing, go here to work with Black Swan Media Co – Worcester SEO company.
Humans are not simple
(We’re more beautiful this way too.)
This is even true in other industries like biology, health, and the list goes on.
No matter what the topic is, the data only allows us to make a hypothesis. And the nature of a hypothesis is basically an estimation of what the truth is. A prediction. Meteorologists make predictions all the time, and they are never wrong. Right?
The definition of a hypothesis is:
“a proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation.”
Note how the definition says, “made on the basis of limited evidence” and “as a starting point for further investigation.” Marketing reports always give us limited evidence. They are a sample of possibilities. For more on smart marketing projects you will like to check the alpha digital group website using the last link.
Human behavior evolves with social change
While we can try our best to predict the outcomes of campaigns we create, the truth is that just because one case study proves that a certain model worked for them, doesn’t mean it will absolutely work for you. Yes, it can be a starting point towards successful campaigns, but…
As a marketer, it is your responsibility to continually, experiment, test, and discover better ways to connect with customers.
That doesn’t mean we should convince them to buy. We don’t need to fool them.
We need to honestly tell them what we offer, how we offer it, and how they can get it. And if it’s something they value, they will make a purchase. Especially when they also believe in the values of your organization. We suggest visiting websites like https://www.qualtrics.com/customer-experience/nps-software/ to find out how you give your customers an overall better experience.
Marketing is difficult and can be unpredictable
For the longest time, especially after reading articles on places like Medium and the rest of the internet, I thought I was not good at Marketing. I didn’t have any cool case studies with substantial numbers to show off. I didn’t have big marketing budgets to work with to do all the cool things I wanted to do with projects, that’s why resources like the best seo reseller program help me a lot in this sometimes.
I would see blog posts like:
“How Brand X Grew from $50k to $750k in 6 Months.”
“How Brand X Grew Our YouTube Channel to 1M Subscribers in 1 Year.”
“7 Ways Your Brand Can 10x Your Leads.”
You know what I mean? You see the stories, you try the things, they don’t work out, or you don’t get the support from the organization you are in, and you feel like a failure. If your recruitment process is not done right, it can be costly to your business, short and long-term. For the benefit of both you and your organisation, you should seriously consider reaching out to job recruiters in Salt Lake city.
It’s not your fault. When you’re not using context or comparing yourself to those specific situations, you’re just not thinking straight. I wasn’t either. So what’s the deal? How do we solve this mystery?
Vanity stats don’t always mean impact
The image at the top of this post is a simple example of how vanity data doesn’t directly influence results and outcomes.
Here is a screenshot of the stats of a photo I shot in 2017 and uploaded to Unsplash in 2018 for Headway.
You can click the picture to see the most current stats on Unplash.
The numbers in the photo were taken January 12th, 2020.
Sharing free photos on Unplash is an experimental way we increase our awareness as a brand while providing free resources to entrepreneurs. Whether they are creating blog content, using it for social, or building their first website using vps hosting, we just want to help.
With all those views, downloads, backlinks added to our website, and shout-outs on twitter from people using our free images, it doesn’t necessarily mean growth for our business.
While it has never directly impacted our business today, it still potentially could.
All it takes is for one person to appreciate the image, be curious to learn more about us and have a need that we can fulfill. It’s not that crazy. Crazier things have happened.
Some could argue that it’s not the best way to grow a product design and development agency, but for the minimal effort it takes to share an image for free, I’ll take it.
You’re not alone as a marketer
I love these two separate paragraphs in the forward of a great book you can get online called Intercom on Marketing. It clearly shares that even marketers in the largest and most successful organizations feel lost, alone, excited, and successful all the time.
Marketing is hard. And great marketing – the Holy
Grail–type that makes us laugh, cry and reach for our
credit cards – is elusive. When marketers nail it we
feel like heroes, dragon slayers, kings and queens
of the realm. But most of the time we feel like those
bumbling adventurers from the Monty Python movie,
hoping nobody can detect the fake clippety-clop of
our horse trot…The best marketers are freaks, in the best kind of way.
They’re part psychologist, journalist, artist, magician,
scientist, mathematician. They’re equally ruled by
words and numbers. They’re moved by the emotional
and the rational. And they’re under intense pressure
to figure-it-all-out(TM), to help decide where to go
and how to get there in a landscape that’s forever
changing.– Jay Simons, President, Atlassian
I never really saw any value in using LinkedIn for the longest time. I would add new articles and update my resume on there once in a while, but it always felt bland to me.
But now, LinkedIn feels very different. I’m actually talking to businessmen like Andy Defrancesco, seeing great articles, and celebrating the professional and personal success of others. Feels kind of like the beginning of Facebook for me. Not quite, but there’s something there.
I was aware of Drift for a while, but never really got familiar with who was behind them. Then someone else had commented or liked one of Dave Gerhardt’s posts, and it caught my attention. This one specifically below.
Dave reflects on how he has messed up within his role and others start to chime in within the comments.
People remember what you share but analytics can’t always show that
The hardest part about sharing your content, thoughts, and comments on social channels is that you never know who sees it.
Which is also a blessing.
You never know who is watching. Anyone could see your content and never like or comment on it. But they still see it and it might just stick with them. You can increase your odds of staying on their mind by posting consistent content and a consistent voice.
Helpful, unforgettable
Be helpful. It feels good and it’s good marketing too.
— Katelyn Bourgoin 👓 (@KateBour) October 7, 2019
Talk to your customers. Talk to your competitor’s customers. Talk to leads. Do one phone call each week to better understand their problems. What are simple things you can do for them to help gain trust, understand how your product or service could improve, or maybe even identify opportunities for new products in the future?
Your greatest assets as a marketer are:
- Integrity
- Honesty
- Listening
- Quality
- Consistency
Those are all traits that humans tend to respect more often than not. You can have amazing creative work, but if you’re a liar, a thief, and only show up once in a while, you tend to get a bad reputation. Listen to feedback that is given and ask for feedback that is hidden so you can continuously improve.
Those are all traits that build trust
In my role at Headway as a Marketing & Brand Manager, we realize that this is happening to us more often than not. People will tell us in person, on a call, or in an email that they love what we share, the voice we have, and the quality of the content we create.
The analytics don’t share that information with us. Humans do. This is even true about the quality of the work our team does.
At Headway we have Slack channel called “#wins” where we all share the positive feedback we get from clients and our community. A place to celebrate with each other, even if we don’t have numbers.
Over and over again people approach the Headway crew in personal situations and share their respect for us as people, the work we do, what we share, and how we do things.
And that’s where marketing gets weird. In a great way. The internet and society crave numbers, but numbers are meaningless without results. Not just any results though. Results that matter. What are the key results your team needs to define success for the organization?
What is marketing?
Marketing is not advertising
The one thing that I hope has been made evident by now is that Marketing is not advertising. Advertising is a tool that only works when money is pushed into it. Once advertising stops, the traffic stops, the attention stops.
Marketing is meant to serve others
With marketing, people have access to ideas, resources, and inspiration to make their life better, potentially with your product.
I’ve recently been reading through This Is Marketing by Seth Godin and he shares five clear steps to guide you with your marketing efforts.
- Invent a thing worth making, with a story worth telling, and a contribution worth talking about.
- Design and build it in a way that a few people will particularly benefit from and care about.
- Tell a story that matches the built-in narrative and dreams of that tiny group of people, the smallest viable market.
- Spread the word, for which you can use the help from Great Roofing Web Design agencies.
- Show up–regularly, consistently, and generously, for years and years– to organize and lead and build confidence in the change you seek to make.
That fifth step is just as important as the rest. It implies that your repeat steps one through four over and over again. This process helps you build brand affinity. Something that I’ve seen Wistia talking about a lot lately and I’m glad they are taking that stance and sharing it with the world.
Wistia’s marketing is a living testament to helping their customers grow their businesses. If you haven’t checked out their content, you can see it here. Not only is their content of high quality, there is also a ton of it. So I’m sure you find something helpful there yourself.
Keep experimenting
Marketing strategies and case studies you see online can be attractive and sexy. But they can easily be fool’s gold. There is nothing wrong with trying strategies that other companies have found success in, but be mindful that you may not get the same results.
The key is to keep trying new techniques, invest in huawei connect service, examine the outcomes, and double down on what’s working.
If you’re looking for some honest inspiration and guidance for your marketing efforts, I would start with these below or the one here.
