The Best Marketing Is Not Marketing. Anymore.

The best Marketing is Design, Copywriting, Product, and Service.

Almost every single marketer today is spending time building content and pushing it out. Blogging. Posting. Emailing. Tweeting. Sharing. Retweeting. Scooping. Building content. Pushing it out.

We’re in the era of content marketing. And that makes a lot of sense.

With increasing advertising costs (are you ready to pay $5 per click on Google Adwords?) the ROI of content marketing proves higher for those who know how to create targeted, useful, shareable, and searchable content pieces.

However, it has become increasingly difficult for followers, readers, and watchers to differentiate high-quality and poor-quality content. Scroll down your LinkedIn feed for example. There is so much. So much repetition. So much promotion. It’s not necessarily a problem with the content itself, but it’s often an issue with the delivery and the philosophy. It’s a push philosophy. It’s a generic delivery.

To stand out, marketers need to promote less and invest their attention outside of the traditional sphere of marketing. In Design, Copy, Product, and Service.

Let’s review a few examples of brands that are doing that to perfection.

Design

Stripe has one of the nicest websites out there, for an online payment solution! The experience is seamless. It screams attention to detail, passion, and trustworthiness. It’s not marketing, it’s design.

Copywriting

Virgin is one of my favorite brands because they made the bold decision to leverage copywriting to build a brand that is highly relatable and original. Considering that flying can be a difficult, tiring (traumatic?) experience, it’s genius to infuse some humanity in the brand voice to make it look (and sound) like no other. It’s not marketing, it’s copywriting.

“We’ve stocked our magnificent flying machines with everything your little heart could want.”

Product

Strava introduced a social media sharing functionality in its application to gain organic, qualified marketing penetration across all social media channels. It’s user generated content on social media that attracts new users and customers from the lowest marginal cost imaginable. It’s not marketing, it’s product.

Service

Amazon would send you a replacement for a lost package immediately without ever implying that your at fault. How does that apply to their Marketing? Take Twitter: If you see a product feature on Twitter and there is an Amazon code included, you can add the item to your cart immediately by replying with #AmazonCart. Amazon has expanded traditional social media functionalities beyond marketing to better serve their customers. It’s not marketing, it’s service.