Marketing as a Second Language

There are hundreds, actually thousands, of people who understand marketing - and they don't work for you. That is because today your customers know more about what works and what doesn't than many practitioners. One main reason why - they learned from being on the receiving end of marketing messages, strategies, tactics, and all that comes with that for hours a day, days on end.

Stories get passed from person to person - many of them not quite flattering to you. "Nice try," they say, "I can see through that." If you want the best example of that ability to break down a message and tell you who the target is and what the advertiser and marketer is trying to make them do, ask a four-year old. They'll tell you, and with the casual tone of the discerning connoisseur.

While you get to play marketer a few hours a day in the spaces between meetings and other commitments, your customers are on a constant treadmill. They are Olympians training to deconstruct your message (and your product), compare it, discard what they don't like about it, or worse, ignore it altogether. Who's paying attention to whom?

Word of mouth, viral marketing, crowdsourcing, consumer generated content - it all comes down to having something that is of value to someone, that is right for them then and there. Want consideration? Be considerate yourself - honest about what you offer while you listen to how you can help your customers. They are fluent in the language of marketing, are you?

To be fluent in marketing today the conversation needs to be:

• Personal - one-to-one
• Spreadable - one-to-one-to-many
• Spontaneous - another word for fluency

Today at Marketing 2.0 I talk about those as lessons marketers can take from the political process.

Comments

[Stephen Denny]

Valeria: you know, I'd split this between the "what" and the "how" of marketing messaging. When it comes to the "how" -- how you say it -- we're all jaded by the thousand plus messages we get showered with on a daily basis. Many marketers tend to stereotype their customers -- Sunny Delight anyone?

The "what" -- as in, 'what on earth does your business do, exactly? -- is where we often do the opposite, where we talk above our customers' heads. We expect too much of them because we're bored with our positioning and branding and simply assume that each and every one of our customers has also sat in all those weekly status meetings and gets our schtick already. Usually, they don't.

People don't care what you do -- they've got busy lives already, don't they?

[Valeria Maltoni]

I have seen massive discussions of epic proportion around a word or a phrase internally for stuff that customers do not care about.

It is easy to do, talking above your customers' head. Especially when you focus on you and your stuff (technology anyone?) vs. the benefit. A writer who gets bored with using the same positioning for different pieces does not consider that you are extremely lucky if your customer even reads one of them.