“Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. The term developed from the original meaning which referred literally to going to market, as in shopping, or going to a market to buy or sell goods or services.”
The above tasks are by no means easy, especially now during our less than stellar economy. Marketers have fascinating yet challenging jobs that essentially boil down to making business work. I was thinking about a few things that marketers can do to help improve their game and wanted to share those things with you.

Stay up to date with technology

Technology is shaping how we market to and build relationships with our users. We have tools that let you communicate to the world instantly, social networks that allow you to build fan pages, applications that can tell what store carries a particular product and for how much, etc. As a marketer you need to be aware of the new technologies out there and how they could potentially impact how you do business.

Create conversations not broadcasts

Broadcast messages are dead, they are just too easy to ignore and tune out. Instead of focusing on creating broadcast messages to large groups of people, shift strategies and try to create conversations with your marketing tactics. The more flow of information you can create the better.

Communicating the new

It’s no secret that the marketing landscape is changing. It’s not enough to just want to be a part of the new type of marketing. You have to be able to understand why you want to be a part of it and how to communicate that to senior execs. Take twitter as a simple example. Would you be able to justify using twitter for business to your boss? Part of marketing is being unique and standing out, being the “purple cow;” the other part is communicating why and how you are going to become that “purple cow.” Desire and ideas will only get you so far, you have to back up your actions and decisions.

Metrics and measurement

Part of being an effective marketer is the ability to show results. How do you do this? by identifying metrics that tie in with your marketing objectives and then showing those metrics increasing. How do you justify the cost for a billboard ad or a television commercial? How do you justify creating a facebook fan page or a twitter account? Learn how to use online analytics and measurement tools and make sure you understand how to correlate your metrics with your actions.

Listening and responding

As a marketer you should be keenly listening to, observing, and engaging in the conversations and discussions that are going on around your product or service. Pay attention to what your users want and don’t want what they like and don’t like. Technology has created virtually free ways for marketers to monitor their brand and create online focus groups. Much of the information a marker needs can be found online for free (or can be gathered). If your customers complain, listen, if they talk to you, respond. This is how you can keep your conversations from turning into broadcasts.
There are several other things that can be added to this list but I’d rather hear from you. What are some of your tips for becoming a better a marketer?

It’s also our fault. Before you move onto the next post, let’s agree on the qualities that make a good marketer today. We need to be good at (the highlights):


How many of you have put these skills to use in the course of your daily work? There is a reason why the list is ordered that way. Many of us climb the first couple of rungs of that ladder really well, yet we rarely get to the others. Why?
The problem, as I see it, is that we don’t do a good job at selling ourselves. Ladies and gentlemen, what people often see is the end result, the campaign, the ads, the program. So they come to the obvious conclusion that that’s where marketing resides. Marketing = tactics.
You’re not convinced yet. You’re thinking that rookies make that mistake; they are too inexperienced to articulate the value of what they do to senior management. Consultants do a better job at this. Their clients hire them on the strength of their being able to articulate what they bring to the table.
What if I told you a brief story that illustrates how a top-notch marketer made the classic advertising rookie mistake? The following story is extracted with slight edits for length from the book Rebuilding Brand America by Dick Martin, former VP Public Affairs at AT&T.

After 9/11, the President decided that we needed to do a better job telling the Brand America story. So who did he turn to? Charlotte Beers, the first woman to rise to the top of two agencies, Ogilvy & Mather and J. Walter Thompson …. – making her the most prominent woman in advertising.
Secretary Colin Powell turned to “the Queen of branding,” “the Queen of advertising,” or “the Queen of schmoozing,” as people called her. His idea was that we needed to sell democracy, the product of a free enterprise system …. – the American value system.

Beers went at it in earnest, doing her research, meeting with people, and working around the clock to come up with the “Shared Values” campaign, a $15MM effort. The response was good, but the campaign didn’t work. Why?
Ms. Beers gave her client what he wanted rather than what he needed. Two major forces where against her:
1. She was not familiar with the intricacies and bureaucracies of reconciling the mandate from Secretary Powell and the complex web of communication offices at the State Department and across the administration. Her sense of urgency blinded her to the fact that she needed to research and understand the dynamics of this organization.
The lesson: know the environment in which you move really well, do your due diligence, speak with key stakeholders, and find the gatekeepers and the internal network’s nodes.
2. She jumped on a running train. She sat in on conference calls where the president’s communications director, Karen Hughes, was already leading State and Defense Departments staffers in writing the message of the day and plotting political strategy.
What happens when you’re put in charge of getting a message out and someone else is already doing it? The due diligence would have uncovered that many of these decisions had already been made. How about going back to the people who put you in charge and request that the business support you as the new lead?
The lesson: your first priority should be to set strategic direction. Find those people within your organization who set the tone from the operational side and partner with them.
You may also find, as Ms. Beers did, that there aren’t enough staff and resources allocated to your department. That will need to wait for another conversation.
Repeat after me, next time someone comes to you requesting a brochure, or a web site, or an ad, what do you say?
Let’s climb that ladder, shall we?

Far better, I think, to be a jazz marketer, as opposed to a rockstar marketer, who may only have one or two hits that they play over and over again unchanged, even twenty years later. Sure, some people might still want to hear Men Without Hats singing “Safety Dance,” but if that’s all the group can do, they’re not very relevant for today’s listeners. Rockstars may shine brightly, but they can also crash and burn quickly when their audience decides to move on to the next big thing.
On the other hand, jazz marketers have staying power and can quickly change what they are doing to be where the audience is. Jazz marketers…

• …can improvise on a central theme. They may somewhat change the melody, harmonies or time signature, but the song (or brand) stays recognizable.
• …know the musical rules and are able to innovate within the traditional structure, as well as break the rules when necessary.
• …stay on their toes so that when something in the piece starts going in an unexpected direction, they can either go with the flow and make it look like that’s what was supposed to happen all along, or rein it back in if needed.
• …incorporate influences from many different styles of music. Jazz marketers draw on disparate fields, from advertising and PR to psychology, anthropology and statistics.
• …let their music come from the grassroots. Rather than originating with royalty or record companies, jazz came straight from self-taught former slaves who were playing what the people wanted to hear. Jazz marketers take their cue from what resonates with the people they are trying to reach, not from what the top brass likes.
• …can make do with whatever musicians are available. A jazz band can be as effective with two different instruments as with ten. Jazz marketers are able to use many different types of tools, choosing the right ones to suit their audience, budget and objectives.
• …are too cool to worry about being cool. They are much more interested in doing what works than in what the current fashion happens to be. Both style and substance are important, but substance should win out every time.

So, as you think about what kind of marketer you want to be, try to model yourself more after Dixieland and Chick Corea than the Dixie Chicks.