Making a Marketer
The role of marketing is more key to organizations than ever before. New technology and consumer demands are pushing marketers to consistently uncover new opportunities for company growth.
Every day, skilled marketers showcase a broad combination of skills to effectively drive company growth. But who are today’s marketers, And what practices make them successful?
Modern marketers solve problems and seamlessly transition between left-brain and right-brain thinking. They balance art & science, analytics & storytelling, tactics & strategy.
Great marketers use:
1. EMPATHY
Building meaningful relationships starts with a deep understanding of the world in which your customer lives. Traditionally, marketers built an understanding by using personas of ‘who’ their customers are. Often, these personas remained unchanged for years, even as the market changed around them.
Modern marketing should more effectively balance the ‘who’ with the ‘why.’ The ‘who’ shows how customers live and act, but the ‘why’ examines the motivations behind those actions.
2. DATA-DRIVEN LATERAL THINKING
Examine the data. What story does it tell? Using data to inform every decision eliminates confusion and paralysis. As a good marketer becomes more familiar with the customer and the data, their intuition grows.
It’s strong intuition that reveals connections between disparate ideas. Strong marketing leverages these connections to form new hypotheses for testing.
3. HUMILITY
The ugly truth is, customers aren’t interested in a marketer’s big campaign idea. Humility and curiosity are imperative to a good marketer. Rather than betting on one large idea, test and prove what connects with consumers.
By building only on validated ideas, marketers ensure the product is growing in the right direction. Marketers should be ruthless in cutting an idea if the data pushes in a different direction.
By combining these qualities, marketers create an environment centered on the consumer’s experience. By focusing on ways to partner with consumers, marketers can work with their audience to find solutions.
The sustainable connection between brand and consumer is built on empathy. But the path to build that connection can be perilous. Vanity metrics, external pressure, and shortsighted decisions can derail great marketing efforts.
Ultimately, the goal is to build, test, and iterate. The best marketers understand the core business, set growth targets, and partner with the customers to create better solutions.
Lab Notes is a publication of GoKart Labs ›
Sign up for Lab Notes email newsletter ›
Follow GoKart Labs on Twitter ›
