You’re a smart person. You’ve been performing your job for quite some time now.
You know what you’re doing. When you’re tasked with completing a new marketing project, you start by asking detailed questions, ones that are thought-provoking and require meaningful insight to answer.
You use those questions to guide your process in creating content and strategies that are innovative and impactful.
Great! However…
…how often do you ask dumb questions?
You know the ones I mean.
Ones like “what’s the purpose of this?” “What problem are we addressing?” And perhaps most important of all… “why does anyone care?”
If we’re being honest here, these aren’t “dumb questions” at all—they’re incredibly pertinent and deserve to be asked!
But oftentimes they’re far more simplistic than the questions that you might initially be asking yourself or your team, especially once you’ve become an expert in an industry.
It’s important to find your niche and to be able to go both deep and wide into a topic as a marketer, but it’s also important to remind yourself to go back to basics every now and then to give yourself a refresher on the issues your customers are facing.
The result? Better content, happier clients, and better partnerships!
Why Am I Doing This?
I love starting with “why” questions.
They’re some of the most innocent questions out there. If you ask yourself questions like “why am I doing this in the first place,” you will often have to take significant pause and reassess your approach critically.
Reevaluate the plan of attack you have and ask yourself why you’ve chosen that path.
Are you really working towards the right goals?
Be honest with yourself in this process, and you might discover ways that you can improve the work you do: if you find that you’re stuck in a content creation loop, developing the same type of collateral over and over without a clear vision, you can shift your direction to something more focused.
If you find that you’ve been recycling the same web strategy for months or even years, you can take the opportunity to apply a new approach and shake up your results.
When the goal of your campaign strategy isn’t wholly aligned with the goals of your business, you can coordinate with other team members to ensure that collectively you’re all hitting your targets.
If you ask yourself why you’re working on a project, you can give inject a healthy dose of freshness and give yourself the opportunity to approach your tasks from an entirely new perspective.
This is your chance to enact positive change and surprise yourself with new outcomes!
What Are the Challenges That Need a Solution?
In today’s modern age, it’s important to remember one simple fact: marketing exists to support sales. Without marketing, your business would struggle to maintain incoming revenue, no matter how good your sales team is.
I’ve experienced, first-hand, how an over-performing sales team can sign on a new client, only to see it fall apart because there was little to no follow through from their marketing counterparts — don’t let this happen to you!
Good marketing focuses on addressing pain points and provides a clear path for your consumers to follow to reach a positive outcome.
Great marketing does this, and adds in a level of emotional impact that creates an authentic connection between your brand and your customer.
Good is Not Good Enough
In today’s hyper-competitive marketplace with more competition than ever before, you really need to have great marketing, not just good marketing.
So ask yourself…does the marketing that I put together address my customers’ core needs in an authentic way?
It’s important to remember that people make purchasing decisions for a number of different reasons.
Their purchase could be a small frivolous matter that is easy for them to make up their mind, or it could be a major concern and their desired solution comes attached to a high dollar figure and a big emotional investment.
No matter what, you need to remember that your prospects will only buy from you if they feel confident that your product or service will benefit them in a substantive way.
Keep their baseline needs top of mind as you create your marketing. If you make their concerns your own, you become more authentic and more trustworthy, and the sales will come that much easier.
“Derek, this is so obvious!” And you’re absolutely right. But if it’s that obvious, then why are so many brands unable to bridge that connection with their customers? Food for thought, don’t you think?
Where Is Someone Going to Look for Answers?
There are a lot of different avenues for marketing nowadays, both digital and traditional.
It can be overwhelming to try and accomplish all types of marketing independently, considering your options for presence include:
- Websites
- Search engines
- Social media
- Mobile devices
- Traditional media
- Experiential events
- And more!!
The good news is: you truly don’t have to do it all. Yes, there are some elements of marketing that are required to be successful with today’s consumers.
Find the channels that matter the most to your customers and focus your efforts on making those experiences as positive as possible, you’ll do great.
Take the time to ask yourself, “If I had problem X, where would I start my research process?”
Would you start with a Google search for a particular keyword? Or would you look on social media for relevant content? Perhaps you go to a store and look for product in person?
Your response here should dictate where your marketing should set up a strong foundation. Remember that you’ll need a stream of incoming leads to sustain your pipeline over a long period of time. Plan ahead, and set yourself up for success!
Once you have a solid foundation built, you can always add on new channels and enhance your marketing presence in other areas, but be thoughtful about your approach.
Better to be great in one area than mediocre in many!
I’m a huge believer of avoiding perfection and achieving excellence.
When Is the Right Time to Make a Purchase?
The million-dollar question…how can I help my customers make up their mind and decide to move forward with a purchase from my brand?
It all comes down to timing.
There’s nothing that we all collectively hate more than bad marketing or advertising.
If you get too pushy in your approach, you’ll turn people off. If you act too meekly, you risk losing out to a bolder competitor.
You really need to spend time to place yourself in the shoes of your customers to understand when the ideal time is to roll out the heavy-hitting marketing.
Ultimately, this very basic question requires a complex understanding of the reasoning behind not only your successful and happy customers, but also your lost customers. Do some research here.
Why did you lose an opportunity in the past? How could it have been avoided? Was it dependent on something that can’t really be changed, such as cost? Or was it perhaps based on a lack of education by the decision-maker?
Trying to understand the reasons for missed sales can sometimes feel like you’re attempting to hit a moving target. But don’t worry. Practice makes perfect.
Collect as much data as you can. Review it regularly. Look for patterns, both positive and negative. Set up experimental campaigns if you can to introduce new tactics that share greater amounts of information, present more significant value, and outline the potential risks of not moving forward.
Not everything will be successful, but remember: nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Your Kindergarten Teacher Was Right
It turns out, there was a reason we were taught the phrase “there are no dumb questions” when we were young. An inquisitive mind pushes boundaries.
Curiosity outlines the best path to growth.
However, it can be difficult to force yourself to be creative, especially when you’re an overwhelmed professional with a lot of pressure on your shoulders.
You want to rely on your intellect when you’re not sure of your next step, and it makes sense to assume that asking difficult questions is a good process to have. I’m not here to dissuade you from that.
Instead, I’m simply suggesting that you ask simple questions alongside those difficult questions.
You might be surprised at the answers you uncover!
