Marketing. The very word has the potential to send shivers down the spine. Most of us just want to do whatever it is we do, not spend our lives telling people about it. And yes, I’m saying this despite the reality of social media, which is almost exclusively people telling other people about the stuff they’ve done. Seriously, folks, how many pictures of feet on a beach does the world need?
When it comes to business, though, most of us would prefer to do our work, rather than market our work to others. However, it is a fact of ideas, inventions, products, services, and every other element of business that the things we do don’t make much of a difference if nobody else knows about them. In fact, marketing what we do has become more important than ever before.
Oh, and harder. A few decades ago there were a small number of well-defined paths to share information with a wider audience – TV, magazines, newspapers, billboards, radio, and that was just about it. Now there are thousands of avenues, and everyone can use them. Truth and lies, good science and bad science, respectful and disrespectful dialogue all thrown together without any filter. The world is noisier than it used to be, which means it’s becoming more and more difficult to punch through the noise.
That’s why marketing what we do is more important now than it was 10 or 15 years ago, and that’s why it will probably be even more important 10 or 15 years from now. The individuals and companies and causes that appreciate the increased importance of marketing their products and services and ideas are the ones that are going to succeed. The ones who can’t be bothered to do it are the ones that will stagnate, struggle or fail.
The marketing that we have to do can be divided in two main categories. The first I’m going to call aggressively positive. And I use the word ‘aggressively’ on purpose, because you do need to be aggressive with this; you can’t afford to assume that people will figure out how great you are on their own.
This is the most common type of marketing, and there are a million ways to do it. You can highlight the best qualities of your products and services, or you can emphasize the most attractive ideas and ideals that animate your company, or you can create a memorable experience that will get people talking in a positive way. Whatever you do, you then need to let people know about it.
That’s why every four years, some businesses highlight which of their employees are going to be in the Olympics. It’s why some insurance companies have put coffeeshops and climbing walls in their offices, so that customers can walk in, get something to drink, learn about financial planning, have a place for their kids to play, and by the way, learn about insurance. And it’s why plenty of eccentric billionaires spend a lot of money putting things into space. Is it always useful? No. But it’s different. It gets attention. And collectively, these individual moments of positivity create a lasting impression in the minds of the people you’re trying to attract.
So that’s the positive side of marketing. But perhaps the more important type is aggressively defensive marketing. We’re not talking now about selling the positive elements of what you do. We’re talking now about staying in control of your message, about preventing the Internet, in all its vast and endless stupidity, from hijacking what you do and twisting it into something else. Because the Internet is amazingly good at that. Negative reviews, misinformation, unsubstantiated rumors, lies – all of these have the potential to impact your business, and you cannot afford to ignore them.
So if you are ever unfortunate enough to become the victim of one of these attacks, it is critical that you market your version of things as quickly and aggressively as you can. That is the only way you will ever be able to keep the situation from spinning completely out of control.
There are a million ways to do both types of marketing correctly, and how you choose to market yourself or your company will depend on what you’re trying to accomplish. If you want to improve your overall image, for example, you can showcase your employees doing volunteer work or draw attention to any awards you’ve recently won. If you want to highlight the value of your products or services, you can create YouTube videos or rock it old school with billboards, which still work really well by the way. If you get a negative review or somebody decides to hit you with an insane conspiracy theory, you can respond so that you get to tell your side of the story. A little brainstorming on your part will almost certainly come up with several ideas that are worth looking into. To be honest, the only approach that is likely to fail here is to do nothing.
So don’t do nothing. Be aggressive in marketing yourself both positively and defensively, and you’ll be as well-positioned as you can be to succeed in the future.
