This Is Marketing

A Simple Marketing Worksheet: Who's it for? What's it for? What is the worldview of the audience you're seeking to reach? What are they afraid of? What story will you tell? Is it true? What change are you seeking to make? How will it change their status? How will you reach the early adopters? Why will they tell their friends? What will they tell their friends? Where's the network effect that will propel this forward? What asset are you building? Are you proud of it?

if you're having trouble making your contribution, realize your challenge is a story you are marketing to yourself. It is the marketing we do for ourselves, to ourselves, by ourselves, the story we tell ourselves, that can change everything. It's what's going to enable you to create value, to be missed if you were gone.

You're already telling yourself a story. Every day. We may market to ourselves that we are struggling. We may tell ourselves that we are unknown and deserve to be unknown. We may tell ourselves that we're a fake, a fraud, a manipulator. We may tell ourselves that we are unjustly ignored. They're as true as we want them to be. And if you tell yourself a story enough times, you will make it true.

Make things better. It's entirely possible that the thing you are marketing satisfies no real demand, there is no good strategy behind it, and that you are being selfish in thinking that just because you built it you should stick with it. Blow it up. Start over. Make something you're proud of. Market something you're proud of.

If you spend time and money (with skill) you can tell a story that spreads, that influences people, that changes actions. Marketing can cause people to buy something that they wouldn't have bought without marketing, vote for someone they might not have considered, and support an organization that would have been invisible otherwise.

The magic of good enough Good enough isn't an excuse or a shortcut. Good enough leads to engagement. Engagement leads to trust. Trust gives us a chance to see, if we choose to look. And seeing allows us to learn. Learning allows us to make a promise. And a promise might earn enrollment. And enrollment is precisely what we need to achieve better. Ship your work. It's good enough. Then make it better.

Tesla understood that no one who bought one of the first fifty thousand Teslas actually needed a car. They all had perfectly fine cars. So Elon Musk created a car that changed the story that a specific group told themselves, a story that undid their status as early adopters and as tech geeks and as environmentalists and as those that supported audacity. All at once.

A tribe doesn't have to have a leader, but it often is populated with people who share interests, goals, and language. Your opportunity as a marketer is the chance to connect the members of the tribe. They're lonely and disconnected, they fear being unseen, and you, as the agent of change, can make connection happen.