Good marketers have their eyes on the prize. They’re not distracted by vanity metrics because the expected outcome is crystal-clear from day one.
They wear their customer’s shoes at all times. They can teleport themselves to each step of their customer journey and think: “How would I be feeling at this step? What would help me take the next step here?” – and then go and address just that. Good marketers also know the customer journey by heart and which medium to use when. They’d never use a hammer to drill a hole if it depended solely on them.
Bad marketers have fun at lunch talking about how much of an idiot their boss is for going all-in on an awareness campaign when the desired outcome is short-term revenue. Good marketers know when to educate others, even if they’re above their pay grade.
Good marketers influence many things: the product roadmap; how the budget will be distributed; the size of the sales team, the positioning; the strategy; and the tactics – even if they’re not in a leadership role. Bad marketers complain about last-minute top-down requests from upper management rather than taking it on themselves to improve their interpersonal skills. Bar marketers don’t realize that if they can’t sell their ideas to peers and leaders, they’ll probably not be able to sell them to customers too. Marketing is all about storytelling and selling ideas, after all, no matter who the target audience is.
Good marketers are great salespeople, even if they’re not aware of it. They naturally use their Marketing skills to promote their hard work and attract larger budgets for their projects. Bad marketers will complain that they never have the resources – money, people, or both – to achieve their goals.
Bad marketers never have the time to analyze their campaigns. There are always too many tasks or important meetings to attend. It’s a lousy lie they tell themselves to avoid the confrontation of looking at the results – or hiding the fact that they don’t have the hard skills yet. Instead of asking for help, they keep Schrödinger’s box closed.
Good marketers build cases to defend their ideas and get the needed support to make it work. And if they don’t have the data to do that, that’s no problem: they’ll be just as comfortable using assumptions and proxies to build a case. Also, these cases are always tied to the bottom line – aka revenue – not only top-of-the-funnel metrics.
Good marketers communicate clearly, ensuring everyone’s on the same page as a project evolves. The same logic applies to managing expectations. Bad marketers wait until the last minute to land the news on this display campaign that could’ve been paused ten days ago. Good marketers look at their stats and take action when something smells fishy.
Good marketers are tech-savvy. They know there’s a tool for everything these days. Even if they don’t know one by heart, one will be swiftly found with a few searches and clicks. They’re not intimidated by platforms they’ve never used before. It’s all software: inputs are provided, buttons are pressed, and magical things happen. They can move whole markets with a few no-code tools, good copywriting, and a customer-centric mindset.
Good marketers understand that strategies, plans, and tactics aren’t written in stone. There’s no hesitation when a u-turn is needed to get back on track. It just takes a little courage and a good PowerPoint slide with the right amount of data and feedback from real customers.
Most of all, good marketers know they’re not the best they could be yet. They take each campaign and every project as a learning experience. Each lesson is a brick that is laid down firmly. Their knowledge palace only gets bigger, stronger, and more beautiful over time; It never parishes.
Still, bad marketers are considered good when they know one thing: it’s not about how good they are but about how good they want to be. It just takes time and the right mindset.
📕 What I’ve been reading and listening to
Who: A method for hiring A Players: I’ve been hiring people for a decade. Still, I must confess it’s one of those areas where sometimes it feels more like witchcraft than actual science – at least, so far. Although some things he explains are basic (like collecting references and then actually calling them), it provides an excellent blueprint, and essential tips can be built upon. Also, I read it in just 2 hours which was what I needed. This time I went one step forward and created a Notion template from this book. It contains a summary and a template so I can use it whenever I need to hire. Yes, I’ll be sharing it soon 🙂
How to deal with burnout: Josh Terry talks brilliantly explains in five minutes what the shift in perspective you need to make to prevent burnout. A must-watch in a post-pandemic world.
First Million Podcast with Ryan Holiday: I finally surrendered myself to it, and I regret nothing (thanks, Yuri, for the recommendation). In this episode, he breaks down the economics of book publishing which is an exciting topic. As an aspiring writer, this interview is all I asked for, so I thought it might be interesting for you too.