There's no shortage of buzzwords in the startup world, nor in any marketing department for that matter. Given my oft-stated dislike of them, it might seem strange that I'm about to propose a new one - 'rational marketing'.
Not because I necessarily believe we are in desperate need of some new and trendy phrase to drop casually into meetings. If anything, we need to return to clarity in language and a stronger sense of purpose in the function we actually serve.
In my view, there is no such beast as a 'marketing department' that exists as a separate and distinct entity within the boundaries of a company. It is rather the place where all the other departments meet - a conduit for success.
Successful marketing comes to know the industry and demographics in a very deep way. It travels a circuitous route from their audience, through sales and customer success, delves into product development and out into the wider marketplace and competition. It builds an understanding of what the customers want, care about, have and don't have and it harnesses this understanding in building the customer experience of your company. And then it cycles back round to go deeper, reviewing and refining in the understanding that everything is changing all of the time.
Of course, not every marketer is afforded the luxury of being able to do this in every company. Perhaps not even in most companies. There's a strong preference at play for skipping over the hard yards of making marketing really work and opting instead for doing what pleases whoever is shouting the loudest. But long term, that's not going to deliver the goods. Which is a net contributor to the common devaluation of marketing as a concept.
What then is rational marketing? To my mind, it is pursuing an elegant simplicity in your strategies, goals and activities .
You cannot speed up or eliminate the steps in the process of building the relationships that will drive strong, steady, consistent and long-lasting success for your company - any more than you can speed up the process of developing a relationship with an individual who you hope might be important in your life. You cannot skip over customer wants in favour of what merely appeals to you in the moment.
There are no shortcuts. For sure, there are marketing techniques and tools that will accelerate the process but (and this is important) only after you have done the work. When you peel away the wild, hopeful excitement of business potential, the buzzwords and snappy phrases, the talk of viral effects and taking over the world and put your focus where it belongs, you have the opportunity of real, solid success over the long haul.
And what is that work?
It’s getting to know and appreciate your potential customers in a deep way. It’s using those insights to better define who you are and what you want to represent in your industry. It’s harnessing those two elements to better develop and position your products to meet the needs that people actually have as opposed to the ones you think they should have. And it’s embracing the idea that this work is never done. It will need repeating, refining and constant challenging of your own ideas and biases. This is what ‘growth’ means and how it’s achieved. There is no 'hack'.
It's about truly understanding all of the moving parts of your company, your industry, the people within it and how you weave a story of how all those pieces fit together and the value they deliver. It's about creating a journey that turns strangers into acquaintances, visitors into customers and clients into life-long brand advocates.
As a species, we lean strongly towards the superficial. The quick fixes and easy answers. The shortcuts and the ‘good enough’. In its place, there’s nothing wrong with that. But when you build a business model on it, you dramatically reduce your chances of long-term success. The good news however, is that you don't have to do it all at once - and you don't have to do it alone. If you are struggling to make the impact that your company deserves, please feel free to fill in our contact form and have a free consultation to find out why!
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