A day in the life: Marketing
As a marketing professional, it is my job to “sell” your services or products, to differentiate you from your competitors, and most importantly connect with your clients. I’m a firm believer in telling a story…connecting the dots from your company directly to the lives of your client.
What is their pain point? What can I (or my company) do for them that would provide tremendous value? What is going to make a difference in THEIR life? The same goes for those in the Business to Consumer sphere, how does my product make my consumer feel or what problem is it solving for them.
Once we can identify who the client is and what they want/need, we’re able to craft a story that pulls on their heart strings or directly relates to a problem they’ve faced. And we’re able to develop better marketing that is worth the investment.
Here are just a couple examples of how I spent my day doing just this:
8:00am - 11:00am The first client of the day is a new-to-market product, Stub-EASE that eliminates electric stub-ups in commercial construction jobs. Did I lose you already? Even those in the field have a tough time understanding this product…because it is something new. It requires people to change the way they used to do things. And even though the benefits far outweigh the time it takes to educate workers on a new system, there is still apprehension. The solution: play devil’s advocate. Today I spent three hours with my client thinking of every possible reason someone would not use our product and also every possible benefit it provides. We found the pain points and then we found the solutions.
11:00am - 2:00pm Switching gears, I moved onto Ken’s Beverage, the nation’s top provider of beverage equipment. Every two years the company has the opportunity to showcase new products to one of the world’s largest restaurant chains at an invite-only tradeshow. In an age where almost anything can be bought online, even beverage equipment, it’s important to focus on the value-adds of my client. For instance, unlike their competitors they have the ability to roll out products nationwide due to their locations across America. What does this mean to their customers? Imagine building a house…you have to source a plumber, electrician, painter, the list goes on. The headaches of communicating with each trade and organizing the details can be exhausting. Now think of that house as America…instead of the restaurant chain orchestrating vendors in each state, they make one call to Ken’s. Solve a problem, gain a loyal customer.
2:00pm - 5:00pm You might be thinking, “Great, she identified problems and my differentiator. Now what do I do?” I GET TO WORK. I build the campaigns, manage the ROI, and work alongside you! People digest information differently (from videos to infographics) and each person pays attention to different mediums (email to LinkedIn.) So I spent my afternoon (and the next day!) storyboarding videos for Stub-EASE, building out a content calendar for blogs and emails, creating LinkedIn graphics, and creating a framework for the website…all of which speaks directly to the end user in a way that they can relate to.
The takeaway:
Marketing has the negative connotation of being a bottomless money pit. I get it. But when you have a clear message that truly connects with your client, you’ll spend far less and gain far more. What is your website telling people? Are your email blasts solving a problem for your clients? Are your salespeople asking the right questions?