Yes, you are going to lose weight, stop smoking, learn a new language and spend more time with your family next year. And while you are in the make-a-bunch-of-resolutions-to-be-totally-awesome-next-year phase, there’s another resolution I want you to consider. As a marketer, do not create more marketing. Create more value.
[Warning: This is going to be brutal. So come along only if you are not afraid of pain.]
7 things to learn about business from a stripper doesn’t really have a lot to learn from, neither does Lady Gaga’s hairstyle. x ways to do y like z where x=7 or 10; y=business, marketing, sales or customer relationship; z=stripper, drug dealer, Lady Gaga or Justin Bieber is done to death. Stop. Now.
Cut down on the sensational headlines and link bait posts. 10 secrets you didn’t know about aren’t really secrets. The Web is a big place, and there’s a ton of information out there.
Those infographics about nothing in particular and then those infographics about infographics are not helping either.
Stop shoving that highly-acclaimed guide of yours as soon as I hit your blog. Let me read the blog post I came to read.
Your dumb social media quizzes aren’t really creating engagement. They are dumbing down an entire generation. Last time I checked, they were the single biggest reason for bringing down the collective IQ of humankind to 40.
Your case studies aren’t really case studies. They are glorified customer testimonials. Might as well call them that.
Your seats aren’t really limited and time is not really running out. Figure out better ways to create urgency.
Your offers and discounts are hurting sales cycles at large. Buyers now expect discounts from everyone. Get people to buy from you because you have a great product, not because you have a discount running.
Creating more value
Over the next couple of years, we marketers are going to gain more and more clout as buying behaviors tilt more towards the marketing side of things. Our budgets will increase and instead of using that to create more marketing, we can use that to create more value. A lot more value.
Create tools and widgets that help people do their job better and faster. In turn, you will earn their trust and respect. Think Hubspot’s Marketing Grader or Twitter’s Bootstrap.
Create best practices guides that are not a rehash of what you can get from the first three search results on the topic. Think deeper about the topic, ask around your team, talk to your customers and then create the guide.
Have an opinion. That list of 25 WordPress plugins isn’t too hard to get. What’s hard to get is the experience people have had with the plugins and what comes recommended by them.
Curate content. The exponential rise in content marketing is also leading to an exponential rise in content marketing crap. Create value for your audience by going through all of it and suggesting the must-read pieces for them, thus saving them time and some terrible writing.
And most of all, stop thinking of yourself as a marketer. Start thinking of yourself as the guy who creates the best possible experience for the users. Right from their first click to when they renew with you. Personalize the website for them, predict what they need next, give them a great mobile experience, give them content tailored to their needs and make it super easy for them to contact you when they need to. And when they do, again give them the best experience by giving your teams complete visibility of all previous interactions. And this is not an easy job. This will require you to get the entire organization in line with your vision, make it everyone’s job to give users the best experience, get your systems talking to each other and and put in place the infrastructure required to give you end-to-end visibility.
Final words
From creating more marketing to delivering the best experience for our users, we marketers have a long way to go. But admitting it and taking a pledge to change the way we think is an important first step. From there, it can only go upwards. And if we all pledge to do it, the entire marketing community can go from being called the guys who put lipstick on the pig to the guys who actually create value.
What about you? How are you going to stop creating more marketing and create more value instead?